Toolkits Series - Introduction

Introduction

"A Festival is an organized socio-spatial phenomenon that is taking place at a designated time - outside the everyday routine - increasing the overall volume of social capital and celebrating selected elements of tangible and intangible culture."

Waldemar Cudny¹

What is a festival? A festival offers the opportunity to subvert the norm, allowing us to exist for a moment “outside the everyday”. A celebration in an abnormal setting. While festivals are shaped—perhaps even defined—by their context (audience, budget, community, genre, history, location, mission, relationships, values, etc.), they are realised through curatorial work.

1 Waldemar Cudny. “The Phenomenon of Festivals: Their Origins, Evolution, and Classifications”, Anthropos 109, no. (2014): 640-56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43861801.

Who is this toolkit for?

This toolkit is primarily concerned with secular festivals, i.e., open to the public, focused on showcasing and celebrating art and/or culture. Within this subsect, however, there are multiple different approaches to programming and curation—and multiple different challenges to each approach. This toolkit is for anyone interested in these diverse approaches and the challenges associated with each. We hope to inspire new ways of thinking, offer moments of reflection, and help tackle complex issues.

How to use this toolkit?

This toolkit provides an overview of what the curatorial process entails, examples of different practices, and helpful contextual information. Throughout the toolkit you will find contradicting examples and unanswered questions which we hope will act as starting points for creative and productive discussions.

This is a living toolkit, and we hope it continues to expand and improve as we learn more about curation and how festivals across the globe are adapting. We are looking forward to expanding our case studies and we welcome contributions from our users.

How to provide feedback, amendments and additions:

The toolkits are open-sourced, continuously developed tools. Therefore, festival and cultural practitioners from all backgrounds and levels of experience are invited to expand these materials by adding their own contributions, building on the gathering of knowledge and insights shared with the whole festival-making community worldwide. Please email info@festivalacademy.eu for feedback, amendments, and additions.

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