The power of mushrooms will be explored at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, but not in the way usually associated with England’s historic music event.
In the six weeks leading up to the festival, a collective of artists and designers are testing mushroom roots, or mycelium, as the versatile, compostable material of the future. The results will be showcased inside the inaugural Hayes Pavilion with sound art compositions and a short film documenting the process.
The experimental art pavilion is one of the three new creations of Money Hayes, a section of the festival that, since setting up a dance tent in the mid-90s, has proudly pumped rave all over its grounds. For festival-goers looking for a contemplative rest on the dance floor, Silver Hayes now presents The Information, an arts-centric debate and conversation stage, originally created for Bristol’s Festival of forwards.
A poster for the new Silver Hayes pavilion. Photo courtesy Silver Hayes.
The list is as eclectic as the topics are varied. Andy Cato of Groove Armada and Great British Bake Off Candidate Ruby Tandoh will discuss the right to eat well. Two Arsenal footballers and a DJ duo will take stock of women’s football. A bunch of festival reps will go meta and ask whether or not festivals can affect positive change in the world (spoiler: they can).
The Turner Prize winning artist Jeremy Deller also makes an appearance at Silver Hayes (but not for a public reenactment or a cover of his Williams-Fairey Engineering Band). Deller is set to join Rough Trade’s Nina Hervé and Jonny Banger, the subversive t-shirt designer and social activist, for “Books Are Weapons,” a talk that will, most likely, discuss books, though. that, as the event flyer states, “We don’t know where this discussion is going to lead.
Silver Hayes’ expanded reach, made possible in part by Arts Council funding, is one of its artistic producers, Ben Price, which its producer says will continue for the next decade.
“We are pushing the region’s programming beyond its electronic boundaries,” Price said in a statement. “The art, design, debate and visual culture that surrounds music will now be at the heart of our offering.”
Glastonbury has been hosted at Worthy Farm in Somerset since 1970 and attracts over 200,000 people a year. The 2023 edition of the festival takes place from June 21 to 25.
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