FlipSide Festival 2019

The Purpose of Place (and the Place of Purpose) - was a feast of conversations, performances, practical proposals, screenings, music and more, amongst the stunning setting of Henham Park Barns on the Suffolk coast.

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Whether it was pioneering literary advocate Robert Macfarlane and Radiohead's artist-in-residence Stanley Donwood incarnating Ness, their poetic parable of land itself resisting, Joanna Pocock searching for meaning in the wilds of Montana or Suffolk's own maestro musician Laura Cannell singing the east lands with Polly Wright, there was an international imagining allied to local grounding in the line up. Curated by FlipSide and Gareth Evans, this day-long event engaged, alerted, provoked and inspired in equal measure. Composer Jocelyn Pook and ecological artist Dan Harvey revealed how and why 'Culture Declares Emergency'. We also recalled and prepared for the great floods with Ed Platt and Ken Worpole, while thinking about the human relations that sustain us in times of conflict. East Anglia's 'poet laureate' George Szirtes and filmmaker Anthony Wilks introduced their film 'Magda's Boy'. Julia Blackburn and Jayne Ivimey read and discussed 'Bird on Bird', their collaboration in print and paint, while Tom Bailey's thought-provoking performance Vigil reminded us how they and so many other species are not free of threat.