Art & Design at Music Festivals
Festivals have been long ago offering much more than just music. Anyone who has ever attended one will have witnessed how through art and design, usually inhospitable places are transformed into magical ones where escaping from daily life and living a vital experience. That is why the venue, its design and the artworks become essential elements defining the personality and character of the festival itself. And despite having less attention-grabbing than the headliners and not being too click-baity, the creative part turns out to be the perfect pairing with music.
Furthermore, festival attendees usually come in a very receptive and positive mode eager to experience emotionally powerful things, and with an increasing number of festivals around the world and therefore a fierce competition to stand out, the opportunity to test new visual environments has been ripe for quite some time now. Besides, music festivals are for the artists a very attractive environment with unique characteristics where despite their ephemerality they can reach a different audience while obtaining enormous media exposure.
Light Beams installation at Sziget festival designed by Hungarian studio HelloWood. Photo by Mate Lakos
But intervening in events of this nature also requires accepting new challenges and it is necessary to consider new scenarios such as the artworks ability to provide shade or to endure harsh weather. A massive crowd in constant party-mode makes security a crucial issue to consider as well when designing and installing a piece of art.
There are hundreds of festivals throughout the world, many of them with their own style and design that today is their hallmark. In fact, over the years we have seen many of their artworks going viral. Coachella, probably the festival with the biggest economic capacity to invest in its artistic proposal, is a good example of this and many of these last year's artworks are easily recognizable even if you have never been to the Californian festival.
Spectra Pavilion at Coachella festival designed by British studio NEWSUBSTANCE. Photo by NEWSUBSTANCE
But not only with money a festival is defined. Location is an element with its own presence and personality that have to be properly interpreted and which also conditions the image of the festival. A good example of this is the German Melt! festival, whose unique location (open-air museum containing huge old industrial machines from the mid-twentieth century) has ended up defining the character of the festival by setting the artistic criteria and tone of the various artistic interventions during its many editions.
Industrial Machine of Melt! festival. Photo by Nicola Rehbein & Jen Krause
Festivals are also socially positioned through their creative side. Thus in many of them we find artistic proposals with a motto of cultural diversity and mutual tolerance.
And special mention has sustainability. Events of colossal dimensions, festivals are a magnificent testing laboratory. For this reason, to a greater or lesser extent, many of them are betting on controlling their environmental impact while struggling to find solutions that serve as an example to other industries and society in general to guarantee a sustainable future. And of course, artistic proposals play a very important role in this, both in their own creation process and in the message or purpose of the artwork.
SKUM Pavilion for Tuborg at Roskilde festival designed by Danish Architecture firm BIG - Bjarke Ingels. Photo by BIG
But despite being well documented on social networks, the art and design of festivals must be experienced in person. That is part of the magic. Because the artworks come to life with the mere presence of people. They modify the environment and transport us to a different world, and that fortunately is still impossible to transmit on Instagram.
Music festivals are some sort of playground for adults. Unique places to remember who we are and who we want to be. Places where to be feel safe and in a way go back to childhood. And like childhood, festivals are a non-fantasy world from which we should never escape.
Cover photograph: “Truth is Beauty” (*) installation at Burning Man designed by Marco Cochrane. Photo by Eleanor Preger
(*) “This sculpture is intended to be agent for social change, challenging the viewer to see past the sexual charge that has developed around the female body; to de-objectify women; to inspire people across the world to take action to end violence against women, create spaces for women’s voices, and to demand equal rights for all, thus allowing everyone to live fully and thrive” (words of Marco Cochrane via Artsy)
