An Indian Summer at Glastonbury

This week sees the return of Glastonbury Festival to Worthy Farm in Somerset. Awash with wellies, crowds and jaw dropping performances, this year will include a new guest – the Victoria and Albert Museum and its youth collective CreateVoice.

Glastonbury Festival © Andrew Allcock

To mark the V&A acquiring the Glastonbury archive from the Eavis family in June 2014, the Young People’s Programme were excited to celebrate by devising and running an event at this year’s festival with the help of CreateVoice.

For those of you who haven’t come across them, CreateVoice is the V&A’s youth collective; a diverse group of 16-24 year olds passionate about art, design, museums and culture. Coming from a variety of backgrounds and with a range of interests and skills, they aim to open up the Museum and its collections to other young people in exciting and interactive ways. They meet regularly to share ideas, engage in creative projects, plan events and participate in workshops – and Glastonbury is just the kind of thing they like to get stuck into!

Inspired by the upcoming India Festival at the Museum, a group of CreateVoice members worked together to devise a hands-on workshop that will be delivered to festival goers in the Field of Avalon at this year’s festival.

Wall hanging of embroidered cotton with silks, Gujarat, ca. 1700 © Victoria and Albert Museum, chosen by members of CreateVoice as their main marketing image for the project

Optimistically entitled ‘Indian Summer’ (and who isn’t hoping for some nice weather this weekend!) CreateVoice worked with artist Jasleen Kaur and illustrator Alexa Galea to develop and then commission the activity. Taking their lead from the beautiful Indian tent hangings that the V&A has in its collections, CreateVoice members commissioned two large scale contemporary hangings.

Developing mood boards with Alexa Galea, image © Laura Blair

Festival goers will be encouraged to add to these hangings over the weekend, by making fabric decorations inspired by their Glastonbury experience and many of the beautiful South Asian objects in the V&A’s collection.

CreateVoice members worked together at all stages of the project, to oversee trials of the activity, help to commission marketing materials and two lucky members will even be there this weekend helping to deliver the activity! To read more about their experiences on this project, head to CreateVoice’s own blog to hear from member Laura Blair.

So if you’re heading to the festival this weekend, make sure you drop by the Café Tent in the Field of Avalon to say hi to the V&A team. The V&A workshop will be running from Wednesday 24^th until Sunday 28^th June.

This autumn the V&A will present a series of exhibitions, displays, events and digital initiatives that explore the rich and varied culture of South Asia, both past and present. The V&A India Festival will mark the 25^th anniversary of the opening of the Museum’s Nehru Gallery, which displays some of the most important objects from the V&A’s South Asia art collection produced between the 16^th and 19^th centuries.