The V&A Celebrates Glastonbury Digitally

Brains : News

22 June 2020

Glasto - but Digital

This weekend, those of us who had planned to attend Glastonbury may be feeling similar to the skies current shade: a little blue. With this year being the festival's 50th year anniversary, the news of the it’s postponement will have broken the hearts of the hundreds of thousand attendees that were ready for a week of different performing arts. While the different virtual reinterpretations are instantly appealing, the V&A’s unique approach is a celebration of what makes the festival so great.

Starting today, the Victoria and Albert museum will be using their website as a platform for a weeks worth of celebration of all things Glastonbury, by launching access to the nation’s Glastonbury Archives. With a click of a computer mouse, you’ll be able to find a selection of posters, programmes, designs, interviews, film, photographs, backstage passes and other memorabilia, venturing from the start of the 50 year lifespan to last year. If this doesn’t tickle your fancy, head to the website to find an array of unseen content, featuring an introduction to the Glastonbury Archive and the Festival’s History as well as an examination of Glastonbury and Fashion, and Glastonbury and Stage Design, as well as soundscape commissioned by Gareth Fry, consisting of seven minutes of recordings from across the festival that was held in 2015. Museum staff have also looked back on their past festival experience, and created a Spotify playlist of their favourite songs heard at the festival, providing the perfect soundtrack for your #Glastonbury2020 weekend.

But crowds don’t flock to the festival just because of the shows that are on offer; the experience is equally as popular as the acts are on stage. Attending Glastonbury is hard to forget, and the museum wants to show this through the memories of previous attendees. So the V&A are inviting members of the public who’ve previously attended, to send in their written memories as a part of their Memory Project, to help story-tell the social experience of the festival. While the festival can’t currently take place, the V&A are continuing to do what Glastonbury does so well: bring people together.

View the V&A Glastonbury content here, and email glastonbury@vam.ac.uk with your written memory if you would like to be a part of the Memory Project.