Tracey Emin, former the enfant terrible of Britart, will exhibit alongside Mark Wallinger, the most recent Turner Prize winner, and Elizabeth Blackadder, one of the most enduring and popular Scottish artists, at this year's Edinburgh Art Festival.

The programme for the event - now in its fifth year - was made public yesterday, delighting many with the news that Emin would mount a 20-year retrospective in the city. It will be her first.

Emin, whose sometimes controversial works included My Bed, a 1999 work at the Tate gallery in London that comprised an unmade bed littered with cigarette packets and condoms. Her body of work has earned her the kind of popular recognition that eludes most of her peers. To sustain that level of interest, Ms Emin is said to have considered hiring a train to transport London-based art critics to Scotland for her show, which opens in August.

“A Tracey Emin exhibition on this scale would be an event anywhere in the world. That the exhibition is in Edinburgh in August and not in London, speaks volumes for this city,” Joanne Browne, the festival director, said.

Ms Browne was reluctant to nominate a single show as a festival highlight but described Emin's exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as a “fabulous feather in our cap”.

Emin made her name with Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, a tent adorned with a list of 102 names. It was exhibited at Charles Saatchi's Sensation show.

The work was one of a number of pieces by young British artists tragically (or not, depending on your point of view) destroyed in a warehouse fire in 2004. But it was not to everybody's taste and, barring a relatively minor endorsement for the catalogue of her show, Ms Emin's retrospective has failed to achieve a main sponsor.

The art festival comprises 50 exhibitions in public and private galleries as well as site-specific works, and has inspired more than 120 associated events.

In the city centre the Ingleby Gallery has relocated to a former nightclub on Calton Road where, over three floors, it will offer 6,000sq ft of exhibition space, the biggest contemporary art gallery outside of London. Its main exhibition in August will feature Kay Rosen but, outside, a prominent billboard project will be launched by Mark Wallinger. Another Turner Prize winner, Rachel Whiteread, is scheduled to contribute a work to the project in the next few months.

Elizabeth Blackadder, a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, exhibits at the Scottish Gallery in her first extensive show of new paintings in her home city for four years, featuring at least 40 oil and watercolour works, that are expected to sell for up to £25,000.

One of the most controversial shows is likely to be Jane Frere's exhibition at the Patriothall Gallery, where the artist's inspiration is drawn from her experiences in refugee camps in Jordan, the Lebanon and on the West Bank.

Other central venues include Attic Salt gallery, which shows Ian Healy, and Bourne Fine Art, which has an exhibition by Emily Young.

Venues also spread outside the city centre. In Portobello, Big Things on the Beach features a series of works installed in the gardens of private houses along the promenade. In Musselburgh a new venture, Eskmills, hosts a group of Scottish artists called Polarcap, whose members include Graham Fagan, Graeme Todd and Liz Adamson, as well as the Swiss duo Kuenhe and Klein.

Site-specific works include events in Advocates Close and at Charlotte Square. These were indicative of a new receptiveness to public art in the city, Ms Browne said. “Artists and galleries are using the festival as a catalyst to challenge the city. There's definitely a change in mood - a sense that Edinburgh itself is a canvas.”

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