Why Festivals?      Speaking anthropologically, festivals exist for religious reasons, celebrating gods together as offerings and possibly displaying our collective obedience and love to those above – but over centuries the idea of a festival has transcended into celebrations of our united consciousnesses and cultures. A way to bring us together without defining who has a seat at the celebration table.     If you remember your junior school history projects, you may remember that in Ancient Greece, celebrations of art culture, music and theatre were commonplace, of course, always in line with celebrating a God (although, I would question whether that was just an early day political PR tool) and from this you could say that music festivals easily derived from this model of ‘Koilon (or Theatron)’.     A lot like the Milton Keynes Bowl that hosted the UK’s first outing and live recording of Greenday’s ‘American Idiot’ album – the Theatron...

Last Sunday a nation reflected on war and the influence on all of our lives it has. Those brave young soldiers who joined the armed forces in the past, with our without choice and of course those who objected to war so passionatelyinsidiousexodus  that they were imprisoned or worse. Fast forward 100 years, and we are still seeing brutal scenes of war - with the usual insideous plan for power over land and people. While Russia storms it's neighbouring Ukriane we have also seen contemporary war crimes, destruction of heritage and also a mass exidous of Russians who do not want to fight a war they are being forced into.  However, we have also seen a nation so passionate about the independence of their people and culture that a global movements of individual financial aid and financial support and protest have been on a scale like never before. The war has been so prevalent in the art world that we have seen this year's bienalle shut down Russian Pavillion for the first time and t...