The Wilding Festival
Evaluation Report
7th – 16th June 2013
Hannah Dunster Gail Macleod
Jenni Parkinson Rachael Perrin
www.soundcastle.co.uk
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Contents
Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Arts Programme .................................................................................................................................. 2
Community Engagement .................................................................................................................... 2
Reach and Participation ...................................................................................................................... 3
Aim 1: To showcase a range of new artistic work related to the issues of equality and women’s
rights. ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
Objective: To display work across a variety of artistic disciplines and genres ................................... 4
Objective: To programme new and especially created work ............................................................. 5
Objective: To engage artists with the festival theme ......................................................................... 6
Aim 2: To provoke reflection and discussion on the legacy of Emily Davison ........................................ 8
Objective: To engage audience and participants with the relevant history and modern issues........ 8
Objective: To encourage the creation of arts to express views and perspectives ........................... 12
Objective: To encourage intergenerational discussion .................................................................... 14
Aim 3: To engage members of the public with St George’s Church as a historic monument and centre
for contemporary arts........................................................................................................................... 16
Objective: To increase visitor numbers to the church ...................................................................... 16
Objective: To attract new visitors to the church .............................................................................. 18
Objective: To use the building to effectively display contemporary arts and performance ............ 18
Aim 4: To make links between art and heritage in the local community of Bloomsbury .................... 20
Objective: To involve local groups and businesses ........................................................................... 20
Objective: To nurture effective partnerships ................................................................................... 20
Objective: To attract local interest through online networks .......................................................... 21
Aim 5: To nurture and promote local community engagement at a high profile level. ....................... 23
Objective: To involve the local community as festival partners and contributors ........................... 23
Objective: To publicise extensively presenting a community festival as a high profile event ......... 24
Objective: To enable the themes of a local festival to reach and involve a wider community ........ 27
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 30
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Overview
The Wilding Festival was a multi-arts event marking the centenary of the death of
suffragette Emily Wilding Davison. The festival was curated and managed by Soundcastle,
hosted by St George’s Church Bloomsbury, the original site of Davison’s memorial service in
1913, and partnered by the Museum of London. Additional support came from the Arts
Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Mercers Trust, William Shelton Educational Charity and
Unite the Union.
The aims of the festival were:
•
•
•
•
•
To showcase a range of new artistic work related to the issues of equality and
women’s rights.
To provoke reflection and discussion on the legacy of Emily Davison.
To engage members of the public with St George’s Church as a historic monument
and centre for contemporary arts.
To make links between art and heritage in the local community of Bloomsbury.
To nurture and promote local community engagement at a high profile level.
Arts Programme
Beginning on June 7th 2013, the programme of events consisted of:
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Pre-festival talks and debates
A visual art exhibition
Open Arts Cafe – a multi-arts event usually resident at West London Synagogue
Curator’s Forum – a performance event created by the festival curators
A weekend programme of 8 ticketed performing arts events including popular and
classical music and theatre
Community engagement performances (see projects below)
Interactive historical tours of Bloomsbury
Community Engagement
The festival’s community engagement programme ran from April to June and consisted of
the following projects and events:
Acoustic Architecture: Praise and Protest with St. Clement Danes and St. Albans
primary schools. A five week site-specific song-writing project.
• Modern Legacies Music with The Museum of London Continue Creating programme.
A five session composition and song-writing project with vulnerable adults.
• Modern Legacies Dance with Sage over 55s Dance Company and Acland Burghley
High School. An intensive four week intergenerational collaboration creating a new
piece of dance.
•
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•
•
•
Memorial Plaque Project with William Tyndale Primary school. A two-day project
creating a plaque to be unveiled at the festival.
Hat-making Workshop with Helena Roden. Ticketed session during festival
weekend.
Curator’s Forum rehearsals involving members of the general public as performers.
In addition the Community Procession invited members of the general public to become
involved on the day.
Reach and Participation
Audience
Community Participants
Performers
Visual Artists
Speakers
Other contributors
Total Reach
1122
144
109
28
11
9
1423
This report examines the success and achievements of the Wilding Festival in line with the
initial aims and underlying objectives, and looks to future developments that may arise from
this event.
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Aim 1: To showcase a range of new artistic work
related to the issues of equality and women’s rights.
Within this aim we looked to achieve the following objectives:
•
•
•
To display work across a variety of artistic disciplines and genres
To programme new and especially created work
To engage artists with the festival theme
Objective: To display work across a variety of artistic disciplines and
genres
The festival provided a platform for 18 new pieces of music, 41 new pieces of visual art and
2 new pieces of theatre, all made with the theme of the festival in mind.
The performing arts programme included a range of genres and styles:
•
•
•
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Contemporary classical works (Consortium5, Folie a Deux Femme, Voice),
Pop, alternative and electronic acts (Evokateur, Annalie Wilson, Joy to Filth Ratio)
Musical storytelling (Meridian, Lightbox, Sound Story),
Classical repertoire and theatre (Troupe)
Show tunes and popular vocal music (London Gay Men’s Chorus)
Devised physical theatre (Tam Lin)
The opening performance event Open Arts Cafe also provided an incredibly diverse evening,
presenting 6 acts covering dance, musical theatre, physical and stand-up comedy and
storytelling.
The visual art exhibition ‘Mirror of the Open Road’ included work in screen printing, textiles,
sculpture, photography, painting, animation and film. These were displayed both within a
specific room of the site and also within the main performance space in the church, so
audiences for the live events were aware of them.
The audience response to the variety of work and quality of what they saw was positive:
“Lovely art with important messages.”
“Brilliant exhibition. Very moving and thought-provoking – taking much away!!”
“Wonderful variety of events”
“The different events were carefully coordinated to make a complete experience that was
original and inspiring, but each was complete on its own.”
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“A wonderfully ethereal atmospheric relaxing mood-piece. Well done Soundcastle on sly
audience interaction and brilliant non-structure. Am leaving blissfully happy, but entirely
confused!”
‘’The music was particularly exceptional.’’
Festival attendees
Objective: To programme new and especially created work
With an emphasis on new and contemporary work, the programme showcased many works
that would not have previously been heard by the audience. Many of the pieces of new
music created for the festival were premieres:
•
•
•
Consortium5 premiered four new pieces by Roxanna Panufnik, Litha Efthymiou, Effy
Efthymiou and Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian.
Folie a Deux Femme premiered a new piece by Jesse Bescoby
Evokateur, Joy To Filth Ratio and Annalie all wrote new songs for their sets at the
Summer Party.
Two new pieces of dance were created for the festival:
•
•
Sage, over-55’s ballet company, joined Year 7 and 8 students from Acland Burghley
School to create and dance a new choreography led by former Royal Ballet soloist
Simon Rice.
Amandine Limtouch created a new dance piece for Open Arts Cafe using
contemporary pop music juxtaposed with dancers in period suffragette costume.
Several of the new pieces were also cross-arts performances:
•
•
•
•
Soundcastle performed a new large scale immersive vocal work in collaboration with
visual artists Akhila Krishnan and Somang Lee
Lightbox created a new performance combining live music and live animation
Litha and Effy Efthymiou combined their compositions with theatrical monologues
using original suffragette text and contemporary writing by Peter Tate and
performed by actress Katie Pattinson.
Voice (vocal trio) combined their performance with a reading from poet Jasmine
Cooray
The emphasis on creating new, original pieces for the festival enabled artists to experiment
with their work in new ways depending on how the theme inspired or challenged them. One
contributing musician commented:
“We wanted to do something special and unique for the festival as we felt it was such a
wonderful and inspiring event, so we collaborated with my Dad and came up with a folk
song about the day Emily stepped in front of the King's horse. As our band is an electronic
act and we wanted to do something very folky and intimate, we decided that I'd play and
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sing the song alone at the start of our set and use the ukulele to accompany myself. This was
both a challenge and a great opportunity for me as I'd never played the uke at a live gig or
amplified so that was great!”
They also developed new ways of working which they intend to carry forward in the future.
“We used the gig as an opportunity to try out a brand new set which was much more downtempo than our previous gigs and it was honestly the best performance we've ever done as
well as being the most supportive audience (over 6 years of performing in this band), so for
us it was a wonderful experience and we will definitely take this new format and way of
playing forward.” Sarah Villaraus, Evokateur
Objective: To engage artists with the festival theme
Artists were encouraged to respond closely to their own take on the festival theme and
connected issues, in order to give the festival a clear artistic and contextual identity.
Three of the visual art pieces had strong outreach themes that linked the historic festival
theme with challenges facing women today:
•
•
•
The Holloway Quilt was put together by 150 women currently in Holloway Prison.
Led by BirdWord charity.
100 Deeds (Sarah Evans/Jenny Gaskell) – the public contributed acts of bravery in
honour of EWD
Labour of Love (Aneeth Arora) – Embroidery made by women in India who are being
sponsored by the artist to gain an education and make a living from traditional arts.
Several of the performances used folklore with parallels to the suffragette stories as a basis
for creating new work:
•
•
Meridian and Jennifer Pearcy-Edwards combined Greek myths and British folk tales
to celebrate the independent spirit of women through storytelling and music.
‘Tam Lin’, a physical theatre piece directed by Kirstin Smith used this well-known folk
tale to reflect on Emily Davison’s final act of bravery.
Following access to the Museum of London’s archive, Most Curious Tours created a new
theatrical tour of the area surrounding St George’s. This guided the audience to discover the
importance of the struggle for suffrage in the history of Bloomsbury along with other
notable stories of activism.
Across the festival all the artists, even those presenting work that had already been created,
were thoughtful and reflective of the festival’s theme. Many of them were looking into the
history properly for the first time:
“I didn’t know much about suffragettes so yes, I discovered a lot by visiting the Museum of
London and researching online as well as talking to some people about the history of the
movement.” Meridian, Performers
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“I had no idea about the suffragette movement, as coming from India it is not a huge part of
our history but nonetheless very relevant.” Priyanka Gaitonde, Visual Artist
For those who were already aware of the history, the festival provided a platform to explore
the ideas further:
“The theme of suffrage was very inspiring to me. Because of the festival I had the emotional
support of a group of women which meant I could produce a piece of work which tackled
and allowed me to work through some of these issues that are very personal to me. It gave
me a voice which otherwise I never would have had.” Fritha Lewin, Visual Artist
“I was really excited about the festival themes, looking at some else life and how it’s affected
modern society.” Natalie Keymist, Visual Artist
“I was inspired by the actual events of Emily's life specifically, and the smaller details about
some of her courageous acts, especially facts concerning Anmer.” Kate Bellamy, Visual Artist
“Our ideas changed while researching the actual event of her death.” Aindri Chakraborty,
Visual Artist
In conclusion the festival presented an extremely broad range of new work across a wide
variety of forms and genres. The theme provided a rich seam of inspiration for the artists
involved. The festival also gave a platform for many the works to reflect on the historical
theme with reference to present day issues. The inclusive and discursive approach of the
curators created an atmosphere in which the artists had space to explore the issues from all
angles and the audience had space to make up their own minds about the controversial
subject matter. Festival partners St George’s Bloomsbury and the Museum of London
praised Soundcastle for creating a ‘’festival of inclusion – not just about feminism but also
broader issues.’’ They enjoyed that ‘’the events were discursive’’ and were impressed that
such a large body of work had been made especially for the festival.
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Aim 2: To provoke reflection and discussion on the
legacy of Emily Davison
Objectives:
•
•
•
To engage audience and participants with the relevant history and modern issues
To encourage the creation of arts to express views and perspectives
To encourage intergenerational discussion
Objective: To engage audience and participants with the relevant
history and modern issues
The Wilding Festival was an arts festival. Within this artistic context, it was of vital
importance that the above objective was fulfilled and Emily Davison’s story and the fight for
equality held strongly at The Wilding Festival’s core. This objective was realised in several
areas including:
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•
•
•
•
The festival’s community engagement programme
Thought-provoking new works of art
Historical talks and political debates
On-site historians
Creating a forum for direct audience response
Community Engagement
The total number of participants in the community engagement programme was 144. From
feedback it seems that the majority of these had little or no prior knowledge of UK
suffragette history or Emily Davison. Following the festival, it was clear that not only had
many of them acquired new knowledge but they had also formed their own opinions on it.
For example in Modern Legacies Music (MLM), the structure of the project and the
partnership with the Museum of London allowed a large focus to be placed on the historical
context. Participants spent time viewing the suffragette exhibition at the London Wall
museum. Written material, images and songs from the museum archives and other sources
were used as starting points for discussion and creativity. Project leader, Gail Macleod,
commented that there were “very opposing opinions within the group.”
The Year 5 children of the Memorial Plaque Project learnt about heritage both through
visiting the suffragette exhibition at the Museum of London and meeting suffragette expert
Elizabeth Crawford. The Museum visit included spending a morning examining and then
sketching suffragette artefacts before taking this understanding further and designing their
own product based on an issue they would fight for. Their class teacher said that the class
had ‘learnt a great deal about the suffragettes’. She also added that ‘the children really
benefitted from discussing the way the Suffrage movement gave votes to women and
thought about what sorts of things they would fight for.’
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Further, in Modern Legacies Dance, the group held intense discussion and debate about
Davison’s actions leading to her death under the King’s horse at The Epsom Derby. These
conversations led on to women’s rights and equality in the present day and what further
progress needs to be made. A participant commented:
“Soundcastle… brought the story of the Suffragette movement into sharp focus especially for
those, like myself, who knew very little about it or about Emily Wilding Davison.”
Rachael Perrin, project manager of Acoustic Architecture commented:
“The discussions were always very engaged and the children had strong opinions about the
topic. The general feeling was one of admiration for Davison and her actions, and surprise
about the lack of equality between men and women. One class said they would like to
present the story to the other classes at their school so everyone understood.”
In order to prepare for the Hat-making Workshop, artist Helena Roden carried out
background research on the festival theme. She commented:
“I discovered a lot more about suffragette history as I read a biography of the whole
Pankhurst family. I gave some thought to; what makes a political campaign successful, does
the end justify the means, how much more subtle and complicated political movements are
than how they are popularly portrayed and how much the recording of history is influenced
by personalities, how a single issue is much easier to work with (abolish slavery, votes for
women, women vicars etc).”
New Works of Art
By requesting that all contributing professional artists engage with the festival theme, they
not only acquired new knowledge themselves but communicated it further to their
audience. Lithia Efthymiou who composed a new work for the festival for recorder quintet
Consortium5 used resources made available to Soundcastle from festival partner, Museum
of London. These resources included the Holloway Jingles. She commented:
“The festival theme was extremely rich. I concentrated on the Holloway Jingles written by
the Suffragettes in prison. I used this material to inspire my new composition and also
commissioned an actress to read two of the jingles as part of the performance.”
The essential background research of all performing and exhibiting artists and workshop
leaders was apparent to festival goers, and audience response through feedback slips and
an online survey was positive in this respect. For example;
“I really enjoyed the festival; especially the historical theme shedding light on contemporary
issues of equality, it made me think about how things still need to change in the balance of
power between men and women and how we need a fresh approach in 2013. I am glad that
you took the trouble to do copious amounts of research, it gave the festival proper depth.”
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Historical Talks
For further historical accuracy, range of opinion and access to information, we held three
free pre-festival talks open to all members of the public.
Subjects included:
•
•
•
•
•
Rise Up Women! Emily Wilding Davison and the Suffragette Campaign for the Vote
The Suffragette Penny – Money and the Art of Communication
Death in Plain Sight: Emily Wilding Davison, Modern Martyr
Panel Debate: How do Gender, Class and Race affect women in UK politics?
The Love of Comrades – Emily Wilding Davison and her Militant Friendships
Speakers included historians and writers with differing perspectives on Emily Davison and
the suffragette cause such as Diane Atkinson, Benjamin Alsop, Hilary McCollum and Marina
Warner as well as MPs Stella Creasy and Jenny Jones and activist Ceri Goddard of The
Fawcett Society. Information was presented without political bias and every talk had the
chance for audience questions. A total of 77 people attended the talks. As well as providing
information, they also set a historical background to the festival, providing a context to the
art on display. A member of the audience wrote in their feedback:
“Hilary's talk was super interesting and she's a great speaker, the photos were really good
too, it gave some good background to what was happening in Emily's world in the build-up
to the Derby, also what prison conditions were like.”
A Twitter follower also tweeted:
“Fascinating talk on Emily Davison, rise of suffragette militancy+context of the Derby protest
from Hilary McCollum at @WildingFestival.”
On-site Historians
In addition to the talks, suffragette expert Elizabeth Crawford and descendant of Emily
Davison, Philippa Bilton volunteered as on-site historians. Acting in an informal context,
they were able to answer specific questions and have in-depth conversations with festival
goers and artists who wished to expand on their knowledge. In this way, the festival was a
constant forum for discussion and a chance for audience and artists to form their own
opinions based on the information they had learnt.
Audience Response
From our audience survey, which represents a small sample of those who attended, we
found that the most common reason for attending the festival (36%) was an interest in the
theme. This indicates that audience arrived keen to reflect on the issues, and this was
apparent as they took great advantage of the featured graffiti wall to express their opinions
on both the historical and modern issues. Sometimes a comment could provoke several
responses and there were some openly heated debates. Many were in favour of Emily
Davison’s protest, for example:
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‘’When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. Long live brave people who stand up
for what they believe in.’’
‘’It has been incredibly inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who have been moved
by the stories, lives, commitment and strength of the suffragettes and Emily!’’
However there were others who did not look favourably on her actions:
“Well, her legacy was not universal suffrage regardless of sex – that came a generation later
in vastly different social circumstances, as a result of a peaceful and legitimate political
process… Terrorists like Davison… provided: 1) disrespect for the rule of law 2) destruction of
property 3) Violence against the person 4) arson”.
Responses to this included:
“I see your point but am perhaps more angry at men’s destruction of women’s property and
lives and patriarchy’s destruction of the earth than I would be at the actions of one lone,
brave woman. Priorities?”
“A wonderful, intelligent and fantastically organised event. A real lesson and reminder of
those in each generation who are called to give prophetic, uncomfortable messages to those
in the hierarchy of power. Resonances too of the Mary Magdalene story where she upset
those who held that law and decorum were inviolable. This is exactly what the church is for!
Wonderful!”
As well as debating historical and philosophical issues, audience were also able to voice their
own thoughts on Davison at a more personal level. Comments included:
‘’She would have been shocked and disappointed by the failure of so many (including
women) to actually vote.’’
‘’Happy to see this festival of equality. Beautiful, spiritual, thoughtful, passionate, noble.
Hope for more in 2018. Hope for a better world forever.’’
‘’Let us not forget nor ever take for granted the rights and equality we have – yet still so
much to strive for women around the globe.’’
‘’The festival shows how important it is to remember the successes of our sisters as we
continue to fight for equality today!’’
‘’Brave women- inspiring! Would I be so brave? I’m not sure I could be.’’
‘’You must use your vote, we suffered for it” words of Miss Hawkins suffragette, my greatgrandmother.’’
‘’Equality should not equal stridency’’
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‘’Roll on women bishops!’’
Beyond the festival, the wider audience were able to continue the discussion on Facebook
and Twitter. Facebook 'likes' for The Wilding Festival reached 328 and now continue to rise
even though the festival has finished. Twitter followers are at 385 and are also climbing. As
well as audience members, many artists and speakers followed their festival appearance
with ongoing enthusiastic debate on the issues they encountered. For example these tweets
from MPs Stella Creasy and Jenny Jones following the panel debate on women in UK politics:
stellacreasy @stellacreasy11 Jun
Great discussion tonight at the @WildingFestival on feminism and representation - all fired
up again after#yes2NC20 today!
Jenny Jones @GreenJennyJones11 Jun
@WildingFestival Women in parliament. UK = joint 58th with Pakistan, behind Sudan (47th),
Iraq (44th), Afghanistan (37th) & Uganda (21st).
Objective: To encourage the creation of arts to express views and
perspectives
In addition to the professional artistic output as detailed in Aim 1, the Community
Engagement programme was key to this objective. Leader of Modern Legacies Music, Gail
Macleod, reflected that the final performance was very closely inspired by the historical
context, and lyrics were taken from suffragette poetry and song as well as prompted by
discussion relating to images. Creating the lyrics through closer reflection on resources
helped participants to engage with the history as well as the creative process. One
participant described this process as;
“An enjoyable brainstorm of ideas with other participants, very well crafted into a song.”
An audience member fed-back in a post-festival survey:
“Another great example of inclusion and equality, with the emphasis on creatively
producing words and music, not being given them to play or sing. Again, we liked the idea
that everyone's contribution is valuable. The group were clearly very involved with the
theme.”
Across all artistic input there were a mixed range of contributors including both males and
females. However the professional artists were predominantly female. We can only
speculate as to whether the festival theme was more attractive to females however the
theme did not deter men from joining the community projects and audience. It is possible
the theme of the festival, as well as an all female curating and programming team was
attractive to female professional artists in an often male dominated environment. An
audience member wrote in the online survey:
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“Amazing, inspiring, empowering festival. The whole festival seemed to offer a space for
new artists to experiment and in particular women artists who might have some difficulty
speaking in a male dominated cultural scene.”
The community participants however, of all ages and genders, connected well with the
theme. Some young members of Acoustic Architecture commented in a post-festival
feedback session:
“The project was not 'just for girls' - It's kind of like both (boys and girls) - It is whole world
rights”
“It was about everyone's rights - we are all equal.”
Contributing to the festival made participants feel a part of something bigger, a wider
artistic community who were all reflecting on and united by a common cause. This quote
from a young Acoustic Architecture participant shows the importance of having their own
voice included and how it helped them to be open to other festival performances:
“I loved the whole festival because we could sing our songs.”
The festival not only served as a forum for discussion on the theme but also as a creative
forum with opportunities for artists to meet, group trips to The Museum of London, easy
contact via Facebook and Twitter and constant contact with Soundcastle, the festival
curators, for advice and further research. The goal was to enable contributors to make real
connections to the subject matter by connecting it to their own personal experiences and
stories. An audience member commented in the online survey:
“It was a totally inspirational festival, so much energy, passion and lots of people with such
fascinating connections to the subject matter. Beautiful venue and really innovative
approach taken to events - it felt like a real honour to be there.”
The creation of art to express views and perspectives enabled the festival theme to be
communicated at a deep, subliminal level. It also avoided the idea of lecturing the audience
and encouraged them to form their own views and responses to be carried into the wider
community and debate. Responses to the performances on the graffiti wall included:
‘’I cried in the Curators Forum immersive piece’’
‘’It’s great to remember what Emily stood for. Really moving and thought provoking
performance’’
‘’...what would EWD have made of it all? A wonderful tribute to her and all she fought for.’’
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Objective: To encourage intergenerational discussion
The Wilding Festival aimed to connect people of many different generations, encouraging
them to communicate their own ideas, perspectives and opinions on and about the festival
themes. This was done through several channels including:
•
•
•
•
The festival’s community engagement programme
Festival marketing aimed at a wide range of age groups
Performing artists and audience members of all ages
Discussion forums
The 144 participants in the community engagement programme plus the 92 attending the
Community Procession ranged in age from 8 - 77 years old. Every project encouraged
discussion and sharing across age groups in different ways. For example, Acoustic
Architecture was performed to an audience of 69, the majority of whom were adults,
hearing what the children of today believe we should be protesting about. Modern Legacies
Music gave vulnerable adults aged between 20 and 70 a voice in a performance to an
audience of 60 which included toddlers and teenagers all the way up to pensioners. Modern
Legacies Dance brought together an over-55s dance company with dance students aged 1214 years to collaboratively create a new dance piece. Following the Community Procession
which also involved a very wide age bracket, a plaque created by local school children was
unveiled by Helen Pankhurst and Philippa Bilton, direct descendants of suffragettes, to this
mixed audience. The Hat-making Workshop had participants ranging from age 9 to over 50
who, working together, presented their own political ideals in the form of suffragette style
hats. In post-project questionnaires, we received positive feedback about the opportunities
to engage across generations:
“There was mutual appreciation between the ages.”
“I liked hearing suggestions from the young people.”
Following Modern Legacies Dance, 76% of Acland Burghley High School participants said one
of their favourite aspects of the project was working intergenerationally. A member of the
audience commented in our post-festival survey
‘…impressed with the way that teenage dancers worked in harmony and perfect equality
with over-55 dance group. Refreshing to see in these days of ageism and youth-oriented
society. It seemed to be very beneficial to both age groups.’
The popular graffiti wall saw comments from children and adults side by side and
sometimes responding to each other. This young audience member had the chance to form
and express their opinion in relation to the historical context:
‘I wish they would have let women vote back in the olden days so Emily Wilding Davison
didn’t have to sacrifice her life’.
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It was written and read alongside hard hitting adult opinions such as ‘Apathy is no excuse’
and ‘Voting is a universal fight regardless of gender’.
The Wilding Festival achieved the aim of provoking reflection and discussion on the legacy
of Emily Davison through a variety of channels before, during and after the festival
weekend. As discussed above, these included intense research on the community
engagement programme, research and interaction between all professional artists, free
public access to information through talks, debates and expert speakers, the use of art to
provoke personal response from the audience and the use of discussion forums both at the
festival itself and now ongoing on our social networks. What has been apparent is the
power of art to unite a wide, intergenerational range of people to commemorate a historical
anniversary – one that may have been overlooked by many of our audience otherwise.
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Aim 3: To engage members of the public with St
George’s Church as a historic monument and centre
for contemporary arts.
Objectives:
•
•
•
To increase visitor numbers to the church
To encourage new visitors to the church
To use the building to effectively display contemporary arts and performance
.
Objective: To increase visitor numbers to the church
Visitor numbers to St George’s prior to and after the festival can be seen below in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
St George's Visitor Numbers
Number of visitors including audience for
performannces
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
During a normal week the church receives an average of 148 visitors and audience members
while in comparison over the course of week of the Wilding Festival 1,122 people attended
the site as audience, 103 as project participants, 132 as artists and 11 as speakers. Staff at
St George’s had previously described ‘the church’s reputation that it is always shut’, and
agreed that the festival was an extremely positive step towards counteracting this opinion.
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In general St George’s suffers from a lack of attendance considering its historical status and
situation in the centre of London. This is partly due to the church’s struggle to keep it open
with volunteers but also a sign that events held here have failed to make a permanent
impression on the surrounding area. St George’s spacious main church can comfortably seat
160 people while the church hall can hold around 40 people seated. Although we were
aiming for an average capacity of around 60%, overall the festival achieved a 41% average.
However this still compares favourably with the monthly average for concert attendance
before the festival, which was 34% capacity.
Figure 2
Percentage of Seats Filled By Event
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
Figure 2 shows the audience attendance per event. Our biggest events came close to our
60% capacity target with the procession reaching 57%, the Summer Party 56% and
Consortium5/Folie a Deux Femme 50%. Bearing in mind that many of our events like the
storytelling, readings and talks were, by their nature, smaller more niche events it now
seems clear that for the future we should be predicting our ideal capacity by paying more
attention to the nature of the event rather than the size of the venue, especially where the
seating is so flexible. This is supported by the fact that two events with the smaller
capacities, the Hat-making Workshop which was a practical workshop for 10 people and
Tam Lin, an intimate piece of theatre that took place in the church hall, both achieved a full
house at 100% capacity.
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Objective: To attract new visitors to the church
Of the smaller segment who responded to our survey, 67% of the audience had not visited
St George’s before. In addition, on average across all the community projects 65% of the
participants had not previously known about or visited the church. One of the school classes
had visited the site through Soundcastle on a previous project. Considering that most of the
participants were either local residents or associated with local institutions this shows how
underappreciated St George’s is by the surrounding area.
Although we were unable to capture exactly how many of the artists were new to the
church, we are aware anecdotally that this was the majority and this group has been the
most vocal at expressing their delight with the venue and desire to return.
“We would definitely both return as performers and/or audience members as we thought St
George's was magical.” Evokateur, Performers
“It would be a pleasure to work at St George's in the future and/or to visit the venue as an
audience member.” Litha Efthymiou, Composer
“I would absolutely consider returning to St Georges. I think it’s a fantastic location and a
beautiful space.” Eleanor Taylor, Visual Artist
“I would definitely consider revisiting St George's church as an audience member or
exhibitor.” Shannon Woo, Sound Artist
‘”After seeing the space I actually asked if I could do one of the fairy tale images on site.”
Natalie Keymist, Visual Artist
“Yes, we would definitely like to use St. George in our works in the future, if an opportunity
comes by to explore its history further that would be amazing.”
Aindri Chakraborty, Visual Artist
“It's a beautiful and poetic place with a sense of past and would love to be back anytime.”
Geetika Alok, Visual Artist
It seems clear that we have laid very solid groundwork in introducing a very diverse range of
artists to the site, many of whom are keen to return. At least a third of the children involved
in Acoustic Architecture have said they intend to revisit St George’s in the future while many
of the visual and performing artists have enquired about future use of the space.
Objective: To use the building to effectively display contemporary arts
and performance
The festival was a first test of St George’s as multi-arts venue with a rolling programme of
mixed events. The flexible seating in the main church was crucial to the success of many of
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the events as we were able to make the layout more intimate for smaller events or make
full use of the space for the bigger performances. This was particularly important when
dealing with the challenging acoustics which are extremely reverberant. In general we
made this work well, with audience comments such as ‘uplifting and inspirational
performances in the perfect venue’ backed up by comments from the artists:
“Thanks for a beautiful event in a totally gorgeous venue.” Bidisha, speaker
“It was very impressive to see the transformation of the Church and it seemed to have come
alive.” Priyanka Gaitonde, Visual Artist
“We really enjoyed the intimate effect that the festival organisers created in such a big
space. It was a pleasure to be close to an audience whilst still enjoying the benefits of such a
large acoustic.” Voice, Performers
Staff at St George’s staff have been very clear in saying that ‘the festival forwarded the
church’s aim to develop a contemporary art scene.’ They also commented how much ‘the
building came alive’ and ‘the place started to buzz’. This was not just noted over the festival
weekend but also in the run up as many artists began to rehearse and create on site:
“The place is being used! I really enjoyed having so many artists around simultaneously.”
Mark Summerbell, Arts and Concerts Director
In particular the festival gave the church an incentive to install a proper system for hanging
visual art which is now permanent and opens the possibility of future art exhibitions.
In conclusion, the Wilding Festival has been a wonderful demonstration of the potential for
St George’s as a venue for contemporary art. Although the audience numbers may not have
matched our high expectations, at no point did this lead to audience apathy or a distance
from the events taking place. With a close understanding of the events on the day
Soundcastle were able to manipulate the space to the advantage of each performance and
create a very memorable atmosphere. The audience feedback has been extremely positive
about St Georges and with so many artists newly inducted into the venue’s network it
seems hopeful that there will be many innovative and exciting events to attend in the
future. We will continue to monitor the effect on visitor numbers over the coming months
to get a true picture of the effect of the festival.
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Aim 4: To make links between art and heritage in the
local community of Bloomsbury
Objectives:
•
•
•
To involve local groups and businesses
To nurture effective partnerships
To attract local interest through online networks
Objective: To involve local groups and businesses
The Wilding Festival had art and heritage at its core as a multi arts festival inspired by an
important event in local history. The curatorial team took the importance of local focus to
the heart of the festival and made sure that it connected with the local community in as
many ways as possible. Examples of this include:
•
•
•
•
All the education and outreach projects were delivered to local organisations, the
majority within walking distance to the site. These projects all celebrated both local
heritage by community members creating new art for the festival.
The local community received targeted flyering and email marketing to encourage
neighbours of the church to attend events.
The procession was designed to attract as many local people as possible by travelling
on a route from Russell Square to St George’s via The British Museum.
Specific social networks were targeting local people, such as relationships on Twitter
between The Wilding Festival and GoToMidtown which saw the latter regularly
tweeting to its local followers about festival events.
The festival also strengthened links with local businesses. The London Review of Books who
were guest hosts for the pre-festival talk with Marina Warner, recorded and posted a
podcast of the talk on their website for greater public access and also recorded all other
pre-festival talks. Historian, Elizabeth Crawford helped to create an exhibition on the
suffragettes and The London School of Economics provided a slideshow and exhibition
boards to host information from The Women’s Library archives. The British Museum
provided Benjamin Alsop, curator of the Citi Money Gallery to give a free talk. UNITE
contributed a large amount of printing and local café, Rushkins, loaned the festival
furniture. Royal Holloway provided magazines from their feminist society. The church staff
felt that the event brought them closer to the local community as it made them more
actively engaged with their surrounding streets and neighbouring businesses.
Objective: To nurture effective partnerships
The partnership with the Museum of London (MOL) was very positive as it gave the arts
festival heritage credibility. One initial challenge for Soundcastle as artists was how to
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curate a festival with such important heritage and political roots, so this partnership gave
sound footing to the development of the themes and knowledge of the curators.
This partnership granted Soundcastle access to the MOL archives. This was a positive
situation for both partners as the team used rare archive items that are not usually used or
requested. For example Soundcastle took copies of sheet music used by the suffragettes
and played them with the children involved in the festival, and at the opening ceremony.
Often people focus on the most physically attractive archive items such as photographs and
newspapers so this brought new life to heritage items. MOL also provided a successful
introduction to the Memorial Plaque Project. This session, combined with artistic processes
stimulated discussion on the subject of voting rights. The MOL team encouraged students to
take subjects home and discuss them further, deepening the connection between art and
heritage.
In a meeting with festival partners from St George’s Bloomsbury and The Museum of
London we discussed the response of each organisation to this theme and how these links
strengthened the connection between art and heritage. The St George’s team noted that
the festival activated the Parish Church Committee and encouraged them to be involved on
a practical level in church events. Many members supported the festival, from verbal
encouragement to volunteering to assist with catering and stewarding. In this way it
promoted strong links between the church community and this local event celebrating art
and heritage. It encouraged people to invest in the church with their time and energy. As
well as this, the feedback on the Sunday morning church sermon during the festival was
very positive. It focused on the connection between the church and the fight for equality
and had a strong positive response from the congregation. This attracted another group of
local people to see the visual art exhibition on in the church and to connect with their local
history through art.
The festival partnerships are looking very positive for the future, with all partners keen to
expand on this relationship between art, heritage and local community. There have been
suggestions of building the education project Acoustic Architecture into a three-year model
and also thoughts on how Soundcastle can collaborate with the Museum of London on
future projects e.g. Continue Creating/ The Only Way is Ethics. They have also been
exploring a proposal to the acquisitions department who may consider taking some Wilding
Festival ephemera into the MOL archives.
Objective: To attract local interest through online networks
There was a considerable amount of online publicity and engagement from local groups and
individuals including GoToMidtown and TimeOutLondon. Many local people were following
the Facebook page and there was significant discussion on the Twitter feed between local
individuals, organisations and The Wilding Festival. This online engagement showed people
demonstrating their opinions about festival art and heritage:
‘’Pretty cool that The Wilding Festival had copies of The Wilding, the RHUL Feminist Society
magazine inspired by Emily, who attended Royal Holloway’’
Page 22 of 31
‘’Privileged to be at commemoration of Emily Wilding Davidson's memorial service today @
St Georges & see my daughter dance’’
This also saw high profile organisations such as The Londonist supporting the festival, e.g.
‘Londonist: Look out for the @WildingFestival, celebrating equality, in and around St
George's Bloomsbury’
The festival had online support, linking a vast range of sources including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Historical societies e.g. People's History Museum and London Historians
Feminist organisations e.g. East London Feminist, Female Arts and London Feminist
Film Festival
Local organisations e.g. St Albans Primary and GotoMidTown
Political associations such as Unite Young Members and Parliament Week
Arts organisations such as Pinkfoot Gallery, Transcend Festival and Young Poet's
Network
Artists and speakers presenting at the festival such as the suffragette experts
Elizabeth Crawford and Philippa Bilton.
In so many ways The Wilding Festival inspired new and exciting connections between art
and heritage in Bloomsbury. From opening the doors of a beautiful, underused building to
commissioning a fantastic range of new artworks, to re-staging a suffragette procession
though the local streets the festival met this aim. Many positive new partnerships and
relationships were formed and we look forward to seeing how these develop. It inspired
the interest of over fifty children in their local history and encouraged them to artistically
explore their responses to the story of Emily Wilding Davison, whilst simultaneously
promoting online conversation between high profile artists and politicians.
Page 23 of 31
Aim 5: To nurture and promote local community
engagement at a high profile level.
Community engagement was at the core of The Wilding Festival and vital to its success. The
community’s response to their discovery of St. George’s Bloomsbury, the history
surrounding it and the creation of thought-provoking art within it was the festival’s
foundation. Audience members could feel the artistic connection to the venue as well as
their own role within it. One person commented in the online survey:
‘All… events were beautifully adapted to the distinctive venue. The high degree of audience
involvement in each event was a notable feature of the festival, reflecting the vision of the
organizers’.
In order to nurture and promote local community engagement at a high profile level,
Soundcastle focused on the following objectives:
•
•
•
To involve the local community as festival partners and contributors
To publicise extensively presenting the community festival as a high profile event
To spread the themes of a local festival to the wider community
Objective: To involve the local community as festival partners and
contributors
The community engagement programme aimed to engage the local community with their
heritage (as outlined in Aim 3) and connect different groups to each other by their
involvement in a high-profile event. In the borough of Camden, the festival involved 3
primary schools, 1 secondary school, an over-55s dance company and adults from The
Museum of London’s creative programme. Each of these groups were facilitated in the
creation of high quality art, equal in creativity, emotion and the power of their message to
the work of the professional artists billed alongside them in the festival programme. An
audience member noted in the online survey:
‘’The projects with schools and other community groups were very impressive in the amount
and quality of the music produced, and the involvement and enthusiasm achieved in a short
time.’’
By involving themselves in the festival, different local groups could then become aware of
and also make contact with each other. For example a St. Albans primary school student
commented:
“I liked the singing and mainly everything. St Clement Danes School seem very nice. I hope I
come here again. I can’t wait for the procession.”
Through their contribution, participants were able to perform a closer connection to and
understanding of their local heritage;
Page 24 of 31
“I didn't even know what suffragettes were. Now I know who and why which is good
because I live right next to the church and had never been inside.”
In response to working with Soundcastle, a school fed-back that the project was very well
organised and that they felt it was very clear what was going to happen. They are keen to
work with Soundcastle again in the future. Being associate artists at St. George’s
Bloomsbury, Soundcastle will be able to retain ties with the various community groups and
continue to build more sustainable relationships in the area.
Objective: To publicise extensively presenting a community festival as
a high profile event
Publicity for the festival was carried out on a large scale in order to place the festival at a
high profile level. Whilst local community involvement was essential, it was important that
we also attracted audience from further afield, spreading the artwork, themes and ideas
beyond the local area of Bloomsbury.
Firstly, we publicised and raised awareness of the festival through the following media of TV
interviews, radio interviews, website and blog features and magazine features. In late April,
we forwarded a press release to a wide range of media contacts and exactly one month
before the festival we held a press reception at St. George’s in full suffragette theme,
including tasters of performances to come. This resulted in several high profile mentions.
Not all viewing/listening figures have been made available to us, but from the listings below,
we can start to estimate the reach.
Media
BBC London TV interview
BBC London Radio
BBC 5Live Radio
BBC Radio 3 In Tune interview
BBC Surrey Radio
Time Out magazine ‘Things to Do’ feature
Church Times magazine feature
London Review of Books magazine
overseas)
Time Out Website
The Journal of Wild Culture Website
The London Word blog
Bloomsbury Square blog
Londonist blog
Time Out blog
Bidisha blog
View London blog
Love Camden blog
Female Arts review
Estimated number of viewers/listeners
3153
2226
36,297
11,904
2869
374,000
34,000
60,000 (two
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
2869
thirds
of
this
Page 25 of 31
Artlyst review
The Cultural Expose review
Unknown
Unknown
From the figures above, we can estimate that we reached at least 527,318 viewers/listeners
and potentially many more. In addition to this we had a targeted flyering campaign in
relevant local businesses and we emphasised the importance of word of mouth alongside
this, encouraging people to talk about the festival and spread the word. For this reason,
many of the flyers were channelled through the professional artists and community
participants as well as the local organisations involved. The flyers also served as a complete
festival programme, providing immediate talking points, particularly useful for those
without internet access. For those with internet access, The Wilding Festival website and
blog had information and details of all performances and artists. Between 3rd June and 3rd
July 2013, the website received a total of 4,459 visits from an international audience. The
spread of this audience is demonstrated below in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Festival Website Usage June/July 2013
2%
4%
4%
UK
Rest of Europe
Asia
Americas
Oceania
(not set)
Africa
88%
30.4% of website traffic came from a direct web address entry and another 30.9% came
from search engines. This suggests that a large amount of online audience were accessing
the sites from independent research rather than through personal connections to
Soundcastle through other websites and social networks. 36.2% came from referrals from
other sites. Social Media referrals accounted for 21% of all visits, with Facebook being by far
Page 26 of 31
the biggest contributor. On the 6th June (the day before the first talk) social media
accounted for 39% of all traffic.
For those who wanted further information and updates we offered the opportunity to sign
up to an online newsletter. There were a total of 8 weekly newsletters sent out in the build
up to the festival. The total number of subscribers to the mailing list rose to 208. The
average open rate of the letter was 44% indicating to us that we couldn’t rely on the mailing
list numbers alone as an indication of reach of publicity.
Following this publicity, we attracted a sizable audience from both the local community and
beyond. The total festival audience attendance was 1122. With the community participants
and range of contributors this means a local arts festival made direct contact with 1423
people, lifting it to a high level of recognition and appreciation. However this shows that
although our publicity reach may have been 527,318, we should examine our marketing
strategy in future in order to attract more people to attend actual events.
The majority of audience members bought their tickets at the box office on the day of the
event. However, the advance booking system gave us some indication of where our
audience was coming from:
Advance Booking By Postcode Area
London
Greater London
5%
Oxford
Milton Keynes
Suffolk
10%
Kent
Cardiff
East Sussex
Edinburgh
75%
Surrey
Warwickshire
Dorset
The vast majority of those who booked in advance were local to London, however audience
travelled from as far as Scotland and Wales. Further, feedback from our social networks and
Page 27 of 31
feedback slips indicate that audience also travelled in from Ireland and Bristol.
Soundcastle believe in the power of community projects to create high-quality art, therefore
all performances, community and professional, were given the same level of exposure and
promotion. In order to nurture and promote community engagement at a high profile level,
it was essential that the quality and strength of meaning in the community performances
was at a high artistic level, able to stand alongside professional contributors. Great attention
was brought to the Modern Legacies programme which involved The Museum of London
Continue Creating scheme, Acland Burghley secondary school and over-55s Sage Dance
Company. It was performed at the exact 100th anniversary to the minute of when Davison’s
memorial service was held at St. George’s Bloomsbury. For this reason, this performance
had a larger audience than many of the professional contributors, and the local community
participants were given a high-profile platform. This heightened the importance of the event
and also further involved people close to the community participants.
Objective: To enable the themes of a local festival to reach and involve
a wider community
The Wilding Festival strived to attract and directly involve the local community and also
make the wider community beyond Bloomsbury aware of the festival themes even if they
were unable to attend the event itself. One parent, whose teenage daughter was a
participant in the Modern Legacies Dance project commented:
“She has been coming home after school and speaking to me passionately about women’s
rights and equality – something we’d never really talked about before.”
Word of mouth communication and inspiring contributors to be passionate about the
festival themes was a vital part of the outreach. However there were other events and
online activity to spread the awareness further.
The Community Procession and plaque unveiling was one of the big successes of the
festival, presenting community-made art at a high profile level and using the heritage focus
to spark a wider interest in the creative arts being presented at the festival. 92 people
gathered in Russell Square, many dressed in period suffragette dress to march through
Bloomsbury to St George’s. Soundcastle shared their research from the Museum of London
archive by leading the procession in original suffragette protest songs which were short,
punchy and easily learned by ear. Once the singing had started it continued for the whole
duration, sometimes several songs going at once. This was a fun and lively event with a
serious heart. Kirsty Marsh, representative of the Museum of London commented:
“All the procession was noticed by the surrounding community, using the heritage to draw
in passersby to an artistic event.’’
The procession brought a large number of people to the church and was the best attended
event of the weekend. Since its conclusion it has featured in several blogs, showing the
ongoing impact of the event. A member of the procession commented in the online survey:
Page 28 of 31
“The procession was absolutely amazing, so much fun, there was singing and camaraderie,
people clapping us on, brilliant!”
Another participant fed-back: “The procession was exciting and moving, involving all agesand very well planned. Costumes, flowers, songs – real spirit of the suffragettes. It attracted
a lot of attention from people in the area, visitors to the British Museum etc. The local
children had produced a beautiful commemorative plaque, very fitting for the occasion and
the place, becoming a permanent feature involving them in their local history. Ceremony
unveiling the plaques was moving and affected all present.”
In terms of the wider community beyond the streets of Bloomsbury and the borough of
Camden, much contact was achieved online via social networks. The festival connected
people with feminist campaigns, bringing them together and creating a support network for
example:
@WildingFestival Pl can you RT (Retweet) @TheWomensRoomUK raising £ to challenge
Bank of England removing women from banknotes
It also helped to highlight other events that were taking place across the country with the
same theme:
Emily Inspires @EmilyInspires1311 Jun
@WildingFestival @philippabilton in London area - join them. In the North - join us. Parallel
events linking places important to Emily
Sarah Pettegree @Brays_Cottage15 Jun
@WildingFestival There was a small display about Emily in @theforumnorwich today. I
thought of you. And her.
Social networkers also used Facebook and Twitter to spread further messages of hope in
support for women’s equality:
Felicity Jones @Unicorncottage15 Jun
Helen Pankhurst @WildingFestival remember & enjoy, keep on campaigning on current
global need for #suffragettecitizenship & equality
By including an international range of artists, according to the website statistics (in the
above objective) knowledge of the festival spread abroad, notably to India where women’s
rights have recently been under media scrutiny.
Finally, several contributors projected five years ahead to 2018, the centenary of the first
women being granted the vote and were already considering how to mark the event.
Speaker, Hilary McCollum fed-back:
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“Thanks for inviting me - I had a really good time. Good luck with your future endeavours.
It's still a long way away, but I think it would be great to have some events in 2018 for the
centenary of women first being able to vote.”
The Wilding Festival has not stopped at delivering a fully packed programme of professional
and community artists, exhibitions, workshops and speakers. Through the internet and indepth community discussions, it has caused the wider community to consider what could
happen next and how we carry our creative ideas, debates and knowledge forward into the
future.
Page 30 of 31
Conclusion
The Wilding Festival was a well-received and positive event, engaging a wide and
intergenerational audience with topical history, heritage and cutting edge works of art.
Although the attendance was not as high as hoped for, a new and enthusiastic audience
were brought to St George’s as well as a network of artists who were inspired by the venue
and its history. The local community was engaged and passionate about the event and its
theme, and many new partnerships were formed which may lead to new artworks,
audiences and projects in the future. The discussion around Emily Davison and the modern
issues, as well as the creation of thought-provoking art, is alive and ongoing and is a sign of
the lasting impact of the Wilding Festival.