Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Pix of Wychwood Festival -- People-Shops, Sat 04 Jun 05 - Set 4 of 6

Tim D Jones | 10.06.2005 13:14 | Culture

Pictures of Saturday's inaugural Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

For permission to copy and use, see CopyLeft at the end of the story below the photos.
For a link to the other set of photos, see one of the comments at the foot of this page.

People - colourful dancer A.jpg
People - colourful dancer A.jpg

People - colourful dancer B.jpg
People - colourful dancer B.jpg

People - fairy folk.jpg
People - fairy folk.jpg

People - guiness boyz A.jpg
People - guiness boyz A.jpg

People - guiness boyz B.jpg
People - guiness boyz B.jpg

People - guiness boyz C.jpg
People - guiness boyz C.jpg

People - holding hands, taking a break.jpg
People - holding hands, taking a break.jpg

People - rainbow eyelashes.jpg
People - rainbow eyelashes.jpg

People - Värttinä, reciprocal bunk-up A.jpg
People - Värttinä, reciprocal bunk-up A.jpg

People - Värttinä, reciprocal bunk-up B.jpg
People - Värttinä, reciprocal bunk-up B.jpg

People - well-equipped fella.jpg
People - well-equipped fella.jpg

People - where's the Beast?! - theatrewithoutwalls.org.uk.jpg
People - where's the Beast?! - theatrewithoutwalls.org.uk.jpg

Shops - clothes galore.jpg
Shops - clothes galore.jpg

Shops - fairylove.com A.jpg
Shops - fairylove.com A.jpg

Shops - fairylove.com B.jpg
Shops - fairylove.com B.jpg

Shops - fairylove.com C.jpg
Shops - fairylove.com C.jpg

Shops - fairylove.com D.jpg
Shops - fairylove.com D.jpg


Steve Earle  http://www.steveearle.net may be the only world class alt.country singer/songwriter to call himself a Marxist. His two albums since the 9/11 atrocity -- 'Jerusalem'  http://steveearle.net/discography/jerusalem.php and 'The Revolution Starts... NOW'  http://steveearle.net/discography/revolution.php -- certainly contain blistering artistic and witty polemics against US imperialism. He's playing three UK dates this year: the Wychwood Festival  http://www.wychwoodfestival.com/artists_steveearl.php , a London gig at the Royal Festival Hall with Patti Smith (as part of her Meltdown Festival) on Sunday 19 June 2005, 7:30pm  http://www.hayward.org.uk/main/events/94433.html (when I'm co-teaching video activism in Bristol), and the Glastonbury Festival (sold out), interviews:  http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/news/index.asp?id=208 and  http://www.johnharris.me.uk/arch/interview/ . So I just had to catch him at the very first Wychwood Festival.

Two years in the organising -- by local people with a love of world music -- the whole event was a great success as far as I could tell. Mostly resembling recent WOMAD festivals in Reading, but on a smaller scale, the family-friendly atmosphere brought in everyone from 0 to 90, with a mean of maybe 35. The musical cast list was certainly extremely internationalist -- for details see  http://www.wychwoodfestival.com/whatson_artists.php . And the program included lots of hands-on DIY cultural activities, from slam poetry to African drumming via music production and belly dancing:  http://www.wychwoodfestival.com/whatson_workshops_saturday.php .

For me, the great pleasure of festivals is getting exposed to new and exciting experiences, from a hands-on workshop to bands I've never heard of. This day's big find was musical -- a Finnish band called Värttinä  http://www.varttina.com . With 10 albums and a 22 year world-touring history, it may be better late than never, but the large audience seemed as thrilled by their performance as I was. Fronted by three animated, tuneful and beautiful women, ably supported by six male musicians, they kind of resemble The Coors with five extra bloke in looks, or Abba in performance, but with a much more rootsy and authentic take on Scandinavian music. I ended up with 32 photos of 'em (not all shown here) which I hope to maybe swap for one or more of their albums.

Politically, the stalls on show were relentlessly reformist, from Bristol Stop the War, to Oxfam, via Greenpeace. But I didn't really expect anything very revolutionary, deep in the heartland of Tory rural Gloucestershire. And the most surprising delight was purely aesthetic -- magnificent, huge and surreal kites, dancing in the stiff breeze. An octopus being eyed-up by a gecko, a female scuba diver being pursued by two clown fish, a giant centipede and a multicoloured ray -- Magritte would have loved it, quit painting and taken up kite design!

If you appreciate musical culture from the world over, a laid back atmosphere and plenty to engage the senses and the mind, I recommend the Wychwood Festival. Here's hoping the organisers also rated it a sufficiently great success to make it a regular event.

In International Solidarity,

Tim D Jones

NB: for Indymedia upload purposes, the photos shown here are lower resolution copies (max 800 pixels, JPEG 30) of higher resolution originals (up to 1280x960 pixels, JPEG 85); to request full resolution originals, please email tim_d_jones[at]yahoo.co.uk quoting caption name(s).

PHOTO COPYLEFT LICENSE
All these photos are 'CopyLeft'. This means you are free to copy and distribute any of my photos you find here, under the following license:
Copyright ©2005 Tim D Jones
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute copies of these photographs, in any medium, for personal and not-for-profit purposes, provided that this copyright notice and permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
Modified versions may not be made (where scaling does not equal modification).
Accreditation: tim_d_jones[at]yahoo.co.uk

Tim D Jones
- e-mail: tim_d_jones[at]yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.internationalism.org

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Links Comment — Tim D Jones
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech