While frolicking in the fields at Glastonbury Festival may be a distant, dusty memory for thousands of revellers – the many art installations that the event is also world famous for often still exist, continuing to tell their creative stories long after the site returns to its farming roots.
One such artwork was the result of Sidcot School Art Lead Learners, who joined forces with Arcadia Reach CIC (a non-profit initiative of the renowned lighting and events company Arcadia, famed for its awe-inspiring festival creations), to design and build a new installation, which was displayed at this year’s festival. Evolving as a concept after Arcadia’s co-Founder and Sidcot bursary alumnus Pip Rush Jansen visited Sidcot to deliver a careers talk, the school’s students collaborated not only with the creative organisation on this project, but thanks to generous private funding and a grant from the Ganton Educational Trust, they were also able to involve students from Weston College.
The project’s brief centred on organising a series of hands-on workshops exploring the exciting intersection of art, science, music and engineering. The workshops focused on a theme of functional sustainability, challenging students to reimagine used metals and materials found during a junkyard foraging trip into new, functional works of art. Through collaborative brainstorming, the Sidcot and Weston students arrived at a truly stellar concept: a large-scale solar system. They then set to work diligently, using various metalwork techniques such as plasma cutting, welding, cutting, hammering, and bending to bring their vision to life. Sidcot and Weston’s Solar System was showcased at Glastonbury Festival, alongside Arcadia’s new Dragonfly stage. The whole structure was powered by wind and solar energy, with bio-ethanol flames. Sidcot School has confirmed to The Bristol Magazine that it will continue to collaborate with Arcadia.
sidcot.org.uk; weston.ac.uk
