A FESTIVE FIESTA!
This year has been extraordinary. Not just Covid but climate change and extreme weather events, terrible racism, the death throes of Trumpism, and the bloody Brexit saga, plus all the other horrors – wars and refugees, disasters, corruption, injustice… There has been good stuff too: the neighbourliness and mutual aid, the kindness and care, that have been the flip side of Covid; Black Lives Matter is an urgent social movement… In Wales we end the year not only cut off from each other, from social life, but from art and culture: our pubs and galleries and museum have been closed, our theatre and cinemas too. And, and, and. How do we mark such a year, at once commemorate it and celebrate it, as the winter solstice and Christmas approach? How do we resist despair and recover the joy of collective creativity? Me, I imagine something in the spirit of the Mexican Day of the Dead: “an explosion of colour and life-affirming joy”, a community demonstrating love and respect for all that we’ve lost – but that will always be with us. Everybody and everything, cherished. I imagine themed carnival costumes, theatre, tableau, mime, poetry, music, song, dance… A happening: situation art, performance… Us.
Thanks to Joey Slake for the photo