What is the Fête of Britain? It's a four-day takeover in Manchester, curated by Brian Eno and Es Devlin's new cultural movement, Hard Art
We’ve been attending to art and artists as their kind of power for change since the start of the Alternative Global (see our deep category archives for Artists, Ingenuity, Creative Industries).
So we’re excited to hear about Hard Art, a new cultural movement instigated by musician Brain Eno, stage designer Es Devlin, artist Jeremy Dellar, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell and others. They have come together “to develop a cultural response to the major critical issues facing the world today, such as climate change, injustice, cost of living, and the crisis in our democracy.”
Their first manifestation of this is Fête of Britain - a four day event in Manchester’s Aviva Studios, in collaboration with Factory International, 22-25 February. As their press release puts it:
Through a mix of play, workshops, people’s assemblies, talks and performances The Fête of Britain will explore the intersecting crises affecting the UK – with a focus on the cost-of-living crisis and climate collapse – and ask how we can draw on our history of resistance, art, culture and assembly, to find our collective power today.
Championing community, collaboration and imagination, the four-day event is an interactive, inspiring and moving event for all ages, bringing together artists, audiences, community groups and organisations to show that “The fate of the nation is in our hands”.
Brian Eno, musician and member of Hard Art: “What’s happening to this country? Where are we going? What do we need to do to make a future we can be proud of? We hope our event will inspire people to embrace their collective power and intelligence, to delight in differences rather than fight over them, and show the creativity in us all when we come together.”
Clare Farrell, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and member of Hard Art: “We all know the world is in crisis. We’re great believers in empowering and enabling people to know that together we can deal with it. The Fête of Britain is all about showing that we have faith in people, that when we come together we make better decisions than politicians. Spaces like people’s assemblies, singing together, having fun, talking and eating at the same table can bring people together across artificial divides, and these are the ways to help people take control of their communities and fix what’s not working.”
The highlights of the programme include:
Drawing from his book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and two seasons of his BBC podcast Things Fell Apart, Jon Ronson will tell funny, startling human stories about the origins of the cultural conflicts that tear us apart today, and offer ideas for how we might repair the damage. Jon will be joined by a top line-up of some of the country’s best comedy talent (23 February).
Shown across the four days will be a series of films exploring democracy, climate change, and the everyday experience of life in Britain from artists such as Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller and Human Atlas. There will also be family fun with traditional fayre games with a contemporary British twist, pop-up performances, play and workshops and participatory activities from Empathy Museum, and Community Conversations hosted by local organisations. (22-25 February).
An evening of revolutionary bass culture curated by the LOWD Sound System and featuring multi-instrumentalist, rapper and “nature geek” Louis VI and many more on a festival-style programme running from Saturday afternoon into the evening. The LOWD (Love Overcomes World Destruction) Sound System is a cultural intervention bringing politics to the street through music and education (24 February).
A celebration of food, faith and uplifting ritual as communities from across Manchester and the UK come together to eat, talk, sing, share and listen to one another. Everyone will collaborate on a fitting ritual finale for the Fête. Also featuring the performances of Brian Eno’s new collaborative sound installation and anew ‘Common Anthem’ for Britain written by Fête visitors with Commoners Choir. (25 February).
More here (and mostly free to access). There’s a few clues to be garnered about the thinking behind Hard Art in this Eno interview with the Institute for Art and Ideas in July last year. Some quotes below:
One criticism levelled at art is that it is dismissed as being escapist; that it takes us out of this world. But I also think, what’s wrong with escaping? We do it all the time; we go on holiday, daydream. So, in light of this, I don’t think that we can really say that some worlds are more crucial than others…
…Much of human knowledge is based on feelings. We think knowledge is evidential and deduction. But when we think about our most important decisions; what job we want to do, who you live with. For those of us with the luxury of choice, we make these decisions not by cold hard calculation, but rather our emotional responses to things.
…Maths, science and technology are all are wonderful, but they aren’t the only tools in our toolbox. We have the ability to use art as a set of antennae that enable us to feel our way into uncertain futures, futures about which there isn’t much evidence or data to work with. And in this sense, the analytical science way of viewing those won’t work… Children learn by play, but adults play through art.
…We are always asked; why don’t you artists do something about climate change? But these requests are often calls for ‘attractive posters’; artwork with such a clear and obvious message that it is essentially a marketing campaign. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a place, as the good thing about posters with clear slogans is that they get reactions. But for that reaction to turn into anything useful, I think there has to be something…a deeper shift going on.
The more effective art in this regard deals with something more fundamental regarding our relationship with the natural world. It’s vital that we foster a different relationship to the world now than we believed in the past, especially compared to the Victorian idea of mankind dominating nature and being the apex of the natural pyramid.
Our relationship with the world is a topic which extends far beyond simply our environmental policy, but delves into how capitalism, our markets and our education system are structured.
This can be engendered by films, paintings and music, but currently, literature is giving us the best answers - writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, and Robert Macfarlane, who have talked about the degree to which we are interwoven with nature. Such works aren’t revolutionary in message, but they are writing about the depth and density of our connections with the natural world. I don’t think any of those writers sat down with the idea; “I’m going to do something about climate change”, but they’re working at a deep, fundamental level’.
…The relationship between technology and art is a continual negotiation. But I think the best way to look at it is that technology is just an extension of ourselves. For example, if I wear spectacles, I can see the keys on my keyboard more vividly; then if I use a microscope, I can see bacteria on the keyboard, whilst on the other end of a spectrum the telescope can help me see the stars. Us humans have always been extending ourselves’.
…As a result of this drive for new technology, we have turned from generalists to specialists.. We used to know how to build a place to sleep, get food, defend ourselves. However, now, I can just be a musician. I can rely on other people to grow food, to manage the traffic system, and so and so on…. Whereas twenty thousand years ago we all lived our lives in a similar way in similar worlds, aside from climate, now we have the options of going into completely separate worlds. I could live in a world which is entirely different from the one you live in- what I have to do during my day, for instance.
Here art serves a vital purpose. One of the very important functions of art is synchronisation; the attempt to keep all of our brains in some kind of relatively similar world…I was on a bus coming down Kilburn High Road and heard two ladies discussing what they saw on EastEnders the night before. From listening in, it was apparent that one of the characters on the show decided to admit she was gay to her family, just hours before she was supposed to marry her male fiancée. They were discussing the way it unfolded and asking questions such as “should she have told her fiancé before her parents?”. And despite initial disagreement, the pair ultimately came to a consensus, reaching synchronisation of how to feel about it.
So art is the only mechanism for resynchronising across people we don’t know. For example, I could ask a stranger; “is the future more 1984 or Brave New World?” And as long as we both have read those works, we can share these great big metaphors, and they can stimulate discussion between us.. We learn things about each other by seeing the similarities and differences of how we experience art together. This is a testament to the power of art.