WITH festival season cancelled for the foreseeable future, many of us have started to hold impromptu garden-fests to fill the void. Dancing away in the lockdown-sun, listening to our favourite artists, and singing til our heart’s content – is it really much different?
If you don’t have the facilities and are left looking at your camping rucksack that you have begrudgingly left unpacked, then the V&A has got your back. Starting today, the world’s leading museum is hosting a seven-day online celebration of all things Glastonbury.
Coinciding with the weekend when the world-famous festival was due to celebrate its 50th year, the V&A has delved deep into its archival collections alongside asking for contributions from its curators.
Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, 1971, from the V&A archives.
The website launched a new collections page, showcasing an accumulation of posters, programmes, designs, interviews, film, photographs, backstage passes and other memorabilia, for the public to use as an online resource. Exploring the festival’s history, V&A curators have created new content providing examinations of Glastonbury and Fashion, and Glastonbury and Stage Design.
Not only is this a platform to educate, but also one to reminisce. The V&A believe that the personal memories of those that attend Glastonbury are just as important as the artists that perform – so, using the email address glastonbury@vam.ac.uk, you can send any written memoirs that will be published on the archive to help tell the story of those that attend. The memories project will contribute towards a 360-degree mapping of its 50-year history.
“Glastonbury is so much more than just music – there are comedians, circus acts, workshops, buskers, dozens of international cuisines. The camping, the walking, the people you pass by and the people you meet. There’s something unexpected around every corner,” says award-winning sound designer Gareth Fry. A specially commissioned seven-minute soundscape by him, exploring a day-in-the-life of Glastonbury, will also launch via the website.
Lastly, enjoy a festival-themed bedroom bop this #Glastonbury2020 weekend with help from a Spotify playlist.
Festival-goer defeated by the mud in the 1990s from the V&A archives.
Arcadia at Glastonbury Festival from the V&A archives
Glastonbury Festival in the 1970s from the V&A archives.
Festival-goers in fancy dress at the Chapel of Love and Loathing (part of the Lost Vagueness field) from the V&A archives.
by Molly Denton
See more of the V&A archive here