Exploring the visual arts and the Festival

We talk to Meryl Doney involved in the visual arts at Greenbelt since the 80s and now curator of the WallSpace Gallery in London, Jake Lever practising artist and teacher and past Greenbelt exhibitor about his work and artistic vision, Derek Hill, Greenbelt's visual arts coordinator, about the Festival's visual arts programming, and Liz Chapman about the street art she saw everywhere on the Greenbelt trip to Israel Palestine in October 2008.

Click here to download the enhanced .m4a podcast file (29.4 MB).

Or stream the audio using the player below.

Or if you still prefer good old MP3 format click here (19.5MB).

Timings – so you can dip in and out if you want to:

00.00 – 02.08 – Intro
02.08 – 05.38 – Meryl Doney at WallSpace on art curating and Visionaries
05.38 – 09.26 – Jake Lever on his artistic work and journey
09.26 – 13.30 – Derek Hill on Greenbelt's visual arts programming
13.30 – 18.00 – Liz Chapman on walls used as canvas in Israel-Palestine
18.00 – 20.05 – Outro

Resources and links

WallSpace Gallery
Jake Lever's work
This year's visual arts lineup so far
Download Liz's 'Holes in the Wall' presentation here as a Quicktime movie

Click here to download audio of our interview with John Peck, the Grandfather of the Festival's theological and artistic vision and worldview (8 MB)

A video short of 2008's Visual Arts programme

Soundtrack (click to buy in iTunes)

Schlomo – unknown
Lemon Jelly – Closer
Lemon Jelly – The Curse of Ka'zar
Brian Eno – Meditation 2 (from Ambient 3 – Days of Radiance)
Brian Eno – First Light (from Ambient 2 – The Plateaux Of Mirror)
Duke Special – Portrait
U2 – Magnificent
Vincent – acoustic guitar version unknown player

Credits

• Narrated by Phil Smith and Grace Wroe
• Narration recorded by Iain Archer
• Mixed and Edited – bigJohn Noble
• Written and Executive Produced by Paul Northup
• Co-production – bigJohn Noble
• Field Recording – Paul Northup

The story is as follows:

"This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track—vocals and guitar—recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott—a blind singer from the French Quarter—added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley's base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz's added some metal percussion to it.

And from there, it just gets rock 'n' rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones."

You can read more over here.

Henry David Thoreau's Walden is one of the three books that will be discussed by the Greenbelt Book Club at this year's Festival.  Our Literature Coordinator, Ben Whitehouse, has now found a way to get the book for free – DailyLit will email you a chunk of the book direct to your inbox every morning.  Or indeed, every weekday morning, if you're like me and barely check your email on weekends…

And don't forget, if you want to buy a real, actual, physical paperback or the other books for the Book Club (Jackie Kay's Wish I Was Here, and Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy) you can do so at our bookshop and make Greenbelt a little bit of money in the process!

I can't remember if I was sent this, or stumbled across it on a lunch break internet bumble (so apologies if you are the person who sent it to me!) but either way, it looks great. And very Standing In The Long Nowish…

Slow Down London is a new project to inspire Londoners to improve their lives by slowing down to do things well, rather than as fast as possible.

The Slow Down London campaign will hold a festival (24 April – 4 May 2009) offering activities and inspiration, through working with a range of partners. It will give Londoners a chance to explore slow music and arts, to try meditation and yoga, to sample slow food and crafts, to discover 'slow travel' in our own city, to debate ideas about time and pace, and to find our own ways to challenge the cult of speed and to appreciate the world around us. You can view the full event programme here: slow-down-london-events-programme

We also hope to create longer-term networks and opportunities for trying life at a slower pace and enjoying improved quality, creativity and wellbeing.

…To see how that ties in to Greenbelt's theme for 2009 click here.

Unfortunately I can't make this weekend's events as I'm at both a Neogeddon Rave in Sussex and my best friend's wedding in Watford. So not much standing, 'slow travel', or long now for the next few days then, but I'll definitely be making time for some of the events next week.

by Ed Richmond

When they’re not busy listening to loads of music to book for the whole of the Greenbelt programme, the intrepid band of volunteers on the music group tend to listen to more music. Here’s what some of them are listening to now.

Helen O’Sullivan
I have been listening to and "youtubing" Denis Jones, who I only discovered recently at a Twisted Folk Festival. A singer-songwriter from Manchester who combines blinding tunes and sharp lyrics, with loop pedals, beatboxing, digital effects and a big beard, and is absolutely stunning live. 

George Luke
My current fave is ‘Orchestra Klaxon’ by the Brazilian singer Max de Castro. It’s actually a few years old, but I only bought it a little while ago. A nice modern take on Samba and Bossa Nova, fused with R&B and a dash of drum & bass. Muito bom, as they say in Rio…  Read about him here and watch a video here.

Pippa Wragg
My choice is the new Edie Sedgwick album 'Things are getting Sinister and Sinisterer'. An excellent cross between Antelope, Devo and The Evens with the brilliant Amy Farina on drums. From the mighty Dischord Records, really grown up sounding post punk which you can stroke your chin to but secretly makes you want to dance around your bedroom. Here's some of the song titles 'Angelina Jolie' 'Sissy Spacek' and 'Rob Lowe'. I know you're interested now!!!

Carl Morris
Hi, I'm listening to the work of Kutiman, who makes original tunes by splicing together YouTube videos of people playing instruments. I have a feeling he spent some time on it. I love culture mash-ups! Audio or visual.

Harvey Jessop
Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream. Possibly bonkers fantasy synth pop
from former Sleepy Jackson frontman Luke Steele.

Ed Richmond
Over the last couple of years I’ve nodded my head and stroked my beard to lots of dubstep (dance beats for beaten-down dads?), but Brum boy Raffertie (above) takes all the sonic ingredients of dubstep, crushes them together with the worst (best?) of oldschool happy hardcore and, critically, speeds it up so you can actually dance to it. Superlatives just ain’t enough.
Check out his Franz Ferdinand remix
Or download his free Bigger Than Barry mixtape

In 1993 Charlie Ryder took part in a demonstration to shut down the BNP headquarters in Welling, south-east London. The demonstration turned into a riot, and Charlie was sentenced to 16 months in prison for his part. While in prison Charlie wrote poetry, letters and art work, and now works for the Anne Peaker Centre, helping prisoners and using arts as a means of rehabilitation.

Charlie performed at Greenbelt 2008, a one-man show called Prison documenting his experience of the criminal justice system, and is passionate about the need for arts in prison, and about the art of forgiveness. Charlie was also given a Trust Greenbelt grant this year, for his work with the children of prisoners.

Earlier this week he appeared on Channel 4 News, asked to give his response to the story of Colin Pitchfork's artwork being removed from London's Royal Festival Hall. The background to the story is available here, and below is Charlie's interview.

To celebrate the first batch of line-up announcements, this month's free talk comes from long-standing Festival friend Alastair McIntosh.

Alastair is returning to Greenbelt this year, so if you like this talk from his last visit (2006), be sure to check him out at Greenbelt 2009.

You might also want to check out his books, and the books of other authors speaking at this year's Festival over here.

And remember, until 1st May all talks are reduced, with 50% off MP3s and a third off CDs, so you can listen to the likes of Yancey, Yaconelli and even Henri Nouwen from just £1!

To take advantage of this offer, hop over to the Greenbelt Talks shop and once you've found something that tickles your fancy be sure to enter ‘LONGNOW’ at the checkout.

Click here, to subscribe to the Greenbelt podcast stream in iTunes (which includes this free talk alongside our monthly podcasts).

Click here to download the talks (26.5 MB).

Or stream the audio using the player below.

by Ben Whitehouse

One of the things I'm most looking forward to at the festival this year is the book club because I know it's going to be interesting. (Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to lots of the Festival but I have a love affair with books which is why I'm the literature coordinator and not in charge of selection of toilets)

We've got an awesome line up of awesome speakers, musicians and big-brained thinkers across the this year but the things that makes my heart swell with affection every year is you, the festivalgoer, always passionate, always engaged and always with an insightful comment on your lips. (And this isn't me just trying to flatter you, gentle reader, I mean it!)

This year we've picked three very different books which we commend to you for discussion at the Festival.

1) Jackie Kay's collection of short stories – Wish I Was Here

This was selected as short stories don't often get look at enough. In travel terms a novel is a long trek from here to there; you can prepare for the long haul journey with lots of bags, equipment and correct clothes. Short stories are weekends away, you've got to travel light and pack generically without knowing what the weather or destination will be like. Booker Prize winner, Anne Enright said: "These stories charm, move and entertain the reader in full-hearted, direct prose. They are full of narrative satisfactions, written with a democratic ear and a poet's poise, with a lyrical twist of phrase that wrings precise emotions from the reader, every time."

2) Henry David Thoreau – Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

With the book Walden Thoreau documents the two years where he built a cabin in the woods, moved into it and lived simply. The cabin experience represents the crucible where Thoreau developed many of his sharpest ideas, had formative experiences and turned him into the literary giant we know today. John Updike said that Walden risks "being as revered and unread as the Bible." Thoreau's reflection on his solitary two years living on the shores of Walden Pond was a book that once captured the imagination of Tolstoy and of Gandhi and we're hoping it captures your imagination too. To read the rest of John Updike's rather beautiful review of the book follow the link to the Guardian website.

3) Carol Ann Duffy's collection of poetry – Rapture.

This is a bit of a selfish choice, I read these poems recently at my own bookgroup at the insistence of a friend. She assured me these were some of the most affecting poems I'd ever read. I seem to involuntarily roll my eyes at this kind of hyperbole but I was quickly proved wrong. Poetry sometimes feels like the scrawny cousin of the short story but these poems demonstrate the economic beauty of the love poem. Xan Brooks wrote of the poems:  "Rapture is an extended rhapsody on a love affair, ushering the reader from first spark to full flame to final, messy conflagration."

If you don't own any of these books, click on the link below to buy them from the Greenbelt bookshop. Your local library should also stock these.

We'll provide you with space, bring a mug of something warm and prepare to share your thoughts with other equally passionate souls. I can't wait to hear what people will have to say about these books. Will you be there? You won't want to miss this, it's going to be great!

—-

Ben Whitehouse is Literature Coordinator for the Greenbelt festival. His blog- White Like Milk – is here and you can follow Ben on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/benjaminbrum

This Wednesday I went to the G20 demonstrations at Bank and the Climate Camp In The City on Broadgate later in the evening.

After briefly joining in the march to Bank at 11.30am, I was at the Climate Camp from 5.55pm until 1.30am the next day, uploading  images to Facebook and blogging live via my status updates with what was happening.

The photos are here on Flickr with the comments & explainations I wrote as I uploaded them. And below are my status updates as I wrote them, with the live comments from other people. I received lots more comments the next day, saying that people had found it really interesting, important, and were thankful to me for being there. I didn't do anything. I just witnessed it as best I could, and where possible tried to stop parties on either side throwing things or wielding truncheons. And I made tea.

*****************************
A Day In The Facebook Protest Journal of Rachel Stringer

Rachel Stringer is ironically going for a monthly Business & Finance meeting at work, in the Square Mile.
07:34
> Carl Morris at 07:36 on 01 April
why is this ironic?
> Simon Duck at 09:09 on 01 April
she can't count.

Rachel Stringer has accidentally joined in the march. It's quite small tho tbh.
11:27

Rachel Stringer – at least 30% are spectators and camera people.
11:33

Rachel Stringer just saw a policeman punch someone in the face
11:45

Rachel Stringer turned up to her Spanish class only to find it shut. Bloomin demo.
12:19

Rachel Stringer is giving put directions to protesters trying to find the demo.
12:29

Rachel Stringer just saw Jesus walk past with a 'Get the Money Lenders Out' placard. She should have gone up and agreed with him and then asked if he could make it sunny for Greenbelt please.
16:51

Rachel Stringer is at the Broadgate Climate Camp In The City. Everyone is pissed.
17:54

Rachel Stringer has just bumped into an old crusty rigging friend…she is not surprised :)
18:22

Rachel Stringer has jst made a donation to Climate Camp to help put on the next one, because she thinks this is a Good Thing.
18:29

> Sarah Dean Hi Rach, I am enjoying your updates and captions from here in Scarborough. Hope it isn't too stressy. Sd x
18:48

Rachel Stringer is a bit concerned by the appearance of 30 more police. Unfortunately they appear not to be alleviating other officers, some of whole have been up since 4am!
18:58

Rachel Stringer shit the police r moving in to a peaceful protest.
18:59

Rachel Stringer police have blocked the sit-in protest in and are 'sterilizing the area' around. Ie no one can be here. I'm standing my ground.
19:08

Rachel Stringer police have cordoned everyone in because the people inside 'have committed offences'. They're not letting anyone out..
19:13

Rachel Stringer the nice police woman in front of her jst said 'this is a complete waste of time isn't it'. It is.
19:15

> Gidon Cohen at 19:22 on 01 April
Keep up the reports Rachel – knowledge is power – you're doing a true citizens job.

Rachel Stringer now a weird standoff. Police not letting anyone in & out but not arresting anyone. Can't quite see how this can be broken without friction unless they move back.
19:23

Rachel Stringer shielded police moving in.
19:33

> Rob Moore rachel, thank you for the eyewitnessing
19:34

Rachel Stringer is off home. She's sorry but cold and a migraine have gotten to her…and nothing seems to be moving on either side.
19:48

Rachel Stringer is lolling cos there r loads of city boys trapped within the sit-in cos they were all getting pissed in the pub on the same steet and jeering at the protesters.
19:55

Rachel Stringer demonstrators have now moved up to the police barrier and r silently standing there. 25 more officers just walked past me moving in.
19:58

> Malin Nylander loving the updates and photos
20:04

Rachel Stringer is still here cos she felt some sort of responsibility to stay. Not sure to who? To them inside and you outside she guesses.
20:05

Rachel Stringer is off to cycle the square mile & see what else g’wan.
20:20

Rachel Stringer managed to stick around longer then the Guardian blog which stopped at 7pmish.
20:40
Rachel Stringer has popped back to the office for crisps, water, ibuprofen and a hoody.
20:44

Rachel Stringer is at the Bank end of Broadgate now. 20 shielded officers jst went past me on the way to Bank. Which is completely shut down
20:53
Rachel Stringer Bizarre. There's now a police van pulled in behind us allowing only 6m between it and the police. Maybe cos it's dark this end and it's using it's headlights to light us up
20:58

Rachel Stringer the Climate Camp man I spoke to said that this end is the bad end…the camp has been split in 2 sections. This section has no access to water now. And the police seem to b pushing slowly in.
21:02
Rachel Stringer likes the nice man giving out ginger tea to people looking a bit wide eyed
21:15

Rachel Stringer just having a jovial chat with a military policeman when another new aggressive one turn up and pushed a girl to the floor for untying the blue tape. They took his number
21:42

Rachel Stringer police estimates r 3000 inside the area
21.45

> Alex Mercer Loving the running commentary lady.
Good work
x
21:46

Rachel Stringer the police jst cleared an area with extreme violence
21:50
> Alex Mercer at 21:51 on 01 April
Noooo! You be careful :(
> Emily Cumming at 22:12 on 01 April
:( mavis, be safe

Rachel Stringer is taking down police numbers
21:53
> Ian Black at 21:54 on 01 April
999 is usually a good one.
> Denis O'Hare at 22:12 on 01 April
Like a man in uniform do you ;-)

Rachel Stringer police are now clearing the numbers with extreme force towards Liverpool street
21:56

Rachel Stringer police jst told us we're not allowed to take photos. Which is bulshit. So we're taking photos
21:58

Rachel Stringer is back at Broadgate watching the police move in on all sides
22.05
> Rob Moore at 22:05 on 01 April
godspeed and steady on
> Craig Steephens at 22:15 on 01 April
you'll never get in the corney and barrow in those shoes

Rachel Stringer police vans have moved. Which might mean we're gonna prob have to run in a min as they force 3000+ people down one street
22.18
> Sarah Faust at 22:21 on 01 April
eeeeek! be careful! X
> Rob Orchard at 22:26 on 01 April
Blimey, are you still stuck there? Stay safe, missus!

Rachel Stringer is here out of choice with a sense of responsibility. If she prayed this is probably her way of doing it. She would like to see a peaceful end to this but is unconvinced there will be..
22:28
> Buzz Rozwell at 22:38 on 01 April
Loving this live update right into my office here in Vancouver, Mavis. Take care out there.

> Geoff Hammond re.live photos – thats good! i have just been through them! and wanted to say ello! Just watched it all on the 10 pm TV news (being middle aged stay at homes and all that!)
22:35

Rachel Stringer is arguing with a crusty because she doesn't think all the police r evil
22:44

> Phoebe Elizabeth Reith are you ok?? x
22:45

Rachel Stringer is being moved back by the police
22:46

Rachel Stringer just stopped a man throwing a brick. For now
22:53
>Thomas Carter, Sarah Faust, Rob Orchard and 2 others like this.
>Alex Mercer at 22:56 on 01 April
Well done you

Rachel Stringer is a bit scared now. What with the bottles and stones. She just had another stand up row about throwing things. Unfortunately there are a lot of people throwing things
22:59
>Ben Mynott at 23:01 01 April via Facebook Mobile
>You go careful out there Rach xxx
Daniel Schnable at 23:04 01 April via Facebook Mobile
>Take care u, admire your stance, but be safe. Not u, but other fools out there.
>Mia Ridge at 23:04 on 01 April
Be careful! Don't they realise they're just playing up to stereotypes and destroying the credibility of the whole protest?
>Gina Cady at 23:30 on 01 April
Thinking of you Rachel. Take good care of yourself xx

>Rob Orchard Massive massive respect to you for doing what you're doing. Hope it doesn't all kick off around you, and hope you get home safely when you choose to head back.
23:28
>Geoff Hammond how are you getting on? not heard anything for a while?
23:32
>Sophie Walker Hey Rachel. There's some gret pics that you're putting up. Be careful out there though… x
23:32

Rachel Stringer is out of the running bit and back in no mans land by the police barriers. Having chatted about God to a man down a side alley
23:53

Rachel Stringer is oooh more police back again…must be about to clear out the people still stuck on the other side of barrier in the camp
23:56

Rachel Stringer lots of cheering from inside the climate camp
00.02
>Sarah Faust likes this.

>Alexander Credé loving the updates, was there this afternoon, what time did you come down? whats the status with climate camp, the tents still up or have they all been cleared?
00:06

>Henry Scowcroft go you xx
00:09

Rachel Stringer is having hilarious conversations about god an theology whilst waiting for police to repeat the earlier process. If she goes offline it's jst the her fone ran out of juice
00:13

Rachel Stringer looks looks like there's a few hard core left but most have gone…presumably evicted
00:39

Rachel Stringer jst talked to a demonstrator who's left the camp. Apparently a few hundred left but the police r now coming in so strong people r leaving cos they're scared
00:42

Rachel Stringer police movin in again..
00:45

Rachel Stringer all seems to be pretty quiet again. Rachel is makin the officers in the police car outside of work a cup of tea, whilst she warms up
00:58

Rachel Stringer has made tea for the police but given she just looked outside and all the riot cops were there with protesters shouting, it might not be the right time to serve it
01:08

Rachel Stringer is protest over. Police have cleared the area and arrested anyone remaining. I'm exhausted. I bet am awful lot of other people are too
01:16

***********

Thursday 2nd April 18:06

Rachel Stringer is at Bank. Quite a few regular bobbies, whilst left over protestors gather on the steps of the Royal Exchange. The boarded up WWI statue has become a monument to the protest, the people, and the dead man.

Pictures here

*********************

by Nick Welsh.

I was at a get-together of techie sorts a few weeks ago and I overheard some very clever people talking about Facebook. One of them said, “Yeah, I used to use Facebook but then my 10 year old nephew started using it so I don’t bother anymore.”

I kind of thought this was a stupid thing to say. I wondered if he had stopped travelling on the bus when his little sister was old enough to start going into town with her mates on Saturday mornings? Did he stop eating spaghetti when his next-door neighbours’ son started eating it? Did he stop going swimming once the local primary school kids started using the pool?

Good technology should be a great leveller; as open and easy to use to the technically minded and the technophobic. If it isn’t, then it’s not good technology.

Jung talks about the shadow-self, or if you’re into your Star Wars, your dark side. We all have a dark side of course but some people’s seem to be darker than others. In my job I meet a lot of very very clever techie-types and I’ve found that many of them, not all, but many of them, seem to have a darker side than most.

They’re modern day magicians who seem to speak a different language to the rest of us. They usually like to keep their magic to themselves, not wanting to reveal their secrets to mere mortals who simply “wouldn’t understand”. This attitude then is their dark side coming through, their shadow-self.

I wonder what kind of world we’d be living in now if the man who wove the www, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, had had a ‘darker than usual’ dark side, if he’d kept the web to himself or sold it to the highest bidder? Perhaps the internet would have become the domain of the super-wealthy and the super- technical; people who didn’t want to share this new technology with mere mortals.

As Stephen Fry would say, “bah” and “pish” to dark-sided techno-wizardry. Let good technology be the great leveller it should be. And if there’s a techno-snob near you, remind them that we were all ‘given’ the www as a gift, snotty nosed 10 year old nephews and all.

Nick Welsh practices graphic art and web design in Cambridge, UK under the name Mono Industries. He was involved in the music programme at Greenbelt for about 100 years and now helps out with various aspects of www.greenbelt.org.uk. He lives in Cambridge with his partner Jane, his daughter Edie and an Irish Terrier called Hattie.

www.monoindustries.com & www.the-monoblog.com
Twitter: @mononick