THE THICKET

The Thicket is a place among the trees at the margins of the festival. A place where the unconscious, the esoteric, and magick are invoked through plants, chants, myth, and mystery. By day, a programme of workshops, performances, talks, rituals, sounds, and artworks burrow into the territories of things born of nature and mystical other worlds. By night, it becomes a quieted place, for creatures of the dark to gather and unfurl into the arms of the woodland and each other, amid a soundscape divined especially for the Thicket by Matthew Olden / The Irrepressible Force.

A witchy shrine-space, created with natural materials foraged, and found around Braziers Park, an altar with a spells exchange for folk to share wishes, a big central wooden pentagram hung overhead,  bunches of wildflowers, devils nests, and stick figures hung throughout the space. New text banners, strung from the trees alongside the large fabric nettley pieces from my exhibition at East Quay earlier this year. It’s interesting to re-contextualise existing work - I think the hangings were more at home amongst the trees.

I also hosted a nettling workshop ‘Naughty Man’s Plaything’ showing festivalees how to make cordage from nettle stems.