Glastonbury @ 50

About the Project

In partnership with the AHRC, this project uses the V&A’s Glastonbury Festival Archive to consider how intangible heritage, in particular performing arts and festival archives, can be presented and interpreted for museum audiences by shifting the focus from museum objects to the ‘performance event’.

Context

The cultural sector is in a period of unprecedented examination of why institutions collect, what they record and how they interpret exhibits in their care. The traditional focus on the physical attributes of an item requires expanding to understand how today’s audiences engage with and approach museum material – in ways that are often digital and outside of the curated experience. Therefore, our project focusses on the ‘performance event’ seeking to understand the transformative power of the participatory festival experience, and how audiences engage with performing arts data and collections.

Aim

This project will launch an ambitious data collecting campaign, beginning with the V&A’s Glastonbury material and expanding to include additional sources, that represents the 50 years of Glastonbury’s history. We will develop innovative digital models for presenting Glastonbury event data and archive collections and test these models across networks of researchers, creative practitioners and festival-goers. A corresponding public engagement programme will invite expanded Glastonbury networks to discuss the legacy and impact of the Festival at a one-day research symposium.

Outcomes

This project will deliver a public Glastonbury research platform, offering a new way for users to search and explore Glastonbury’s history and a new model for public engagement with Festival data and archive material. We will also deliver a public engagement programme of events and commissions, hosted both at the V&A and online. A central feature of the public programme will be a one-day research symposium, bringing together the work of academics studying Festival culture with the insights of the creative community who make Glastonbury happen.