Field System: The Art of May Day Mischief
Something uncanny is happening in Ashburton…
If you find yourself there this Beltane, don’t be surprised to see drag kings with bells on their boots, ritual bears crashing an art gallery, and an entire town moving to the beat of something older, stranger, yet somehow joyfully new. Field System’s Mayday Celebration returns on Thursday 1st and Saturday 3rd May with a heady mix of art, folklore, activism, and sheer revelry.
For art seekers, group exhibition Lore and Land III opens Thursday 1st May at 6pm in Field System’s West Street gallery. This year’s show brings together four South West artists:
Conjurer of a world where roadside breakdowns require both jump leads and incantations. In The Museum of Roadside Magic, folklore meets the MOT: think ceramic charms for safe travels, performance costume relics from a parallel Albion, and archival whispers that feel just real enough to believe. Is it fact? Fiction? Bove’s answer: “Why not both?”
Libby Bove, Rituals of the Roadways
Libby Bove, The Museum of Roadside Magic. Photo Credit: Dom Moore - Karst Gallery.
Mischief-maker of the museum corridors. Drawing inspiration from ethnographic collections across Europe, she reimagines historic artefacts as clay characters and textile oddities, letting them speak in strange tongues to contradict their dusty captions. The result is a kind of speculative archaeology - joyfully unacademic, wildly alive...
(...)
Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT
OR...to continue reading….
Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue.
-
Image Credits:
Lead Image: Libby Bove, The Spirit of Summer. Commissioned by Nik Slade for the Evercreech Jack in the Green event. Photo by Mark Pickthall.
All other images as credited in photo captions.