The Great Instauration (2026)

'The Great Instauration' by British artist Gayle Chong Kwan takes over the Grand Gallery of the National Museum of Scotland for the duration of the Edinburgh Science Festival (4-19 April).

Commissioned by Edinburgh Science Festival, Edinburgh Art Festival and Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Gayle Chong Kwan researched scientific artefacts and archives across eight major collections and speaking to communities: National Museums Scotland and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Wellcome Collection, Wellcome Collection at the Science Museum, Science Museum Collection Centre in Swindon, Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, Surgeons Hall Museum Edinburgh, and community gardens in Edinburgh. 

Chong Kwan explored the history of the scientific canon and the Scientific Enlightenment in Scotland, to rethink science’s stories and reframe who and what gets to be remembered. She focused on the Scotland’s complex historical connections with slavery, enslaved people, plant and botanical origins of medicine and the University of Edinburgh, medical infirmaries, the advent of geology, and scientific instruments.

Chong Kwan's work is an installation of large-scale sculptures of scientific instruments transformed into fantastical roots, hanging fabric of geological strata of Edinburgh with archival and painted images, and steel plinths inscribed with lesser-known histories. Chong Kwan connects exploitative and extractive histories, the scientific gaze, roots, geological strata, to upturn the stories that shape our understanding of scientific knowledge and discovery.