Five questions with… Rocca Holly-Nambi, Director of b-side Festival
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Hey Rocca! Can you tell us what b-side festival 2023 is all about?
b-side is an arts organisation and annual festival that is madly passionate about Portland. Every year we commission new art by independent artists and collectives based on the island and around the world.
Each new artwork is displayed as a pop-up across the island in dialogue with the people and places of Portland. This combination of creativity and civic engagement means that each new artwork and event speaks both about our local habitat but also, and always, about wider global themes and concerns.
Our long-term curatorial theme is ‘Common Lands’ and this year’s festival theme was ‘This Land,’ which is a focus on the unique but fragile landscape and heritage of the Isle of Portland. Artists are exploring and highlighting this in an unimaginably diverse array of works, from immersive theatre and sculptural films to social performance and a ‘Keep Portland Weird and Wonderful’ parade!
What prompted the theme for this year’s festival?
We believe everyone has a right to live on, to love, and to enjoy and engage with the Isle of Portland’s unique land. For this to happen we must look after our island and each other. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England, our ‘This Land’ programme has been running for two years on Portland; undertaking workshops, research projects, and discussions about just this - how to look after and celebrate our island.
This festival is the culmination of a vast amount of community research, collaborative working between researchers and artists, and visioning from a diverse range of residents about the future of two specific sites on Portland. One site is a Tudor cottage at risk from demolition and destruction from the climate crisis. The second site, what we call ‘The Last Landscape’ is the land surrounding our famous Portland Bill lighthouse - it is the only area of Portland that hasn’t been quarried and therefore has unique historic and biodiverse features.
We called on all kinds of people - many who wouldn’t see themselves as heritage experts but definitely as active citizens - to first learn and then visualise and share what is unique about these places, and therefore why they need protecting.
With artworks, walks, talks, workshops, and performances as outputs, ‘This Land’ became a festival for everybody, an opportunity for all to learn more about the rich cultural landscape of the Isle of Portland.
Why was it so important to engage with the local communities, organisations and artists?
It is the meeting point between artists, community members - both groups and individuals - and local organisations that creates each b-side commission, event, and activity. Our community provide artists with insight, knowledge, and care for the island.
Artists create new languages - or highlight existing voices - for what is taking place on Portland. This is particularly pertinent for an island that is often done to, rather than collaborated with.”
Through a contemporary arts festival which forefronts community dialogue, we are finding new models for how we can make decisions, take action, and enjoy Portland together.
What were some of the highlights from the line-up?
What I loved about this year’s line-up was the combination of major new installations - sculpture, film, social, and performative. Anna Heinrich and Leon Palmer’s new film installation Entry was shown at the Islanders Youth Club in East Weares and was breathtaking. Heinrich and Palmer focused on the derelict cottage at Brandy Row in Chiswell. The cottage was a home for fishermen and quarrymen, and is now owned by Dorset Council, and is currently being used as stores. Entry exhibited Heinrich and Palmer’s interpretation of the changing landscape of Portland and a resilient and evolving community over time.
The Isle of Portland has a vibrant and dynamic spirit, and not enough can be said for the importance of diversity, difference, and even some weirdness in all our perspectives and experiences. Everyone is welcome.”
Artist collective, Kneed, have also been researching the cottage. They worked long-term and sensitively with an incredible array of community groups; young people, library users, chip shop customers. Each person contributed their views on what the cottage might become. They have turned this into a broadcast, into a ‘Weather or Not Station’ which talks about how the weather has affected the cottage and whether it might become a fishing museum, a shop, a young person’s gaming hub… let’s see!
Renowned outdoor theatre makers, Wildworks, devised a participatory, spectacular, landscape performance. It featured residents from the area, started at dusk, and took audiences across the coastline at the very south of the island, in the ‘Last Landscape’. Audiences experienced fire, song, costumes, engagement and a mind-blowing mix of natural landscape and human movement. In the same landscape but with completely different medium, Emily Tracy created intricate paper sculptures - hundreds of birds, butterflies, flora, and fauna - each one a visualisation of the incredible data collected over the last 60 years at Portland’s Bird Observatory.
Our festival fringe was really powerful. There were over 50 entries this year, residents who showcased their talents and creative obsessions all over the island and from their windows, garages, on the beach and in parks. It all culminated in the ‘Keep Portland Weird and Wonderful’ parade. Portlanders and visitors alike came dressed in their wackiest garments and paraded through the streets in a huge celebration of togetherness, diversity, and wonderful weirdness!
And finally, any idea what the theme will be in 2024?
As soon as we’ve had a rest, we are launching, ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’, a creative response to migration. From visual artists, poets and composers to storytellers, comedians and musicians, artists and communities are looking at themes of belonging and home. Given Portland’s recent ties with this topic, this theme comes at a time when we think it has never been more evident that empathy and reflection is needed in society’s response to migration. Again, you are all welcome.
