b-side Festival

About

 With an exciting, playful and challenging programme led by Southwest-based and international artists, this spectacular four-day event celebrates the island’s environment, folklore and heritage.

Artist Sadie Hennessy presents Outstanding Unnatural Beauty Parlour, a horsebox trailer revamped with the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood beauty parlour. Fitted with audio installations of conversations with carnival and beauty queens, the trailer will tour the island, offering makeup tutorials led by veteran showgirl Kiki Bogof. Hennessy’s interactive installation involves a makeover in the mirror, then asks visitors to reflect on conceptions of beauty. Also touring the Portland landscape will be TOURIST, a bespoke audio intervention on the No. 1 bus. Passengers will be immersed in a dreamy, cinematic drive around the island.

Sophie Fretwell will exhibit The Light House, an installation that literally shines a light on the positive things Portland’s local community experienced during lockdown. Of Sea & Stone by artist Dan Shorten and Guildhall Live Events uses light, colour and figurative images to transform the surface of the fifteenth century Rufus Castle. These images, like the Portland coastline, are sculpted by water. The installation was inspired by community-led research for The History, Myths and Legends of Church Ope Cove Project, a b-side and Portland Museum partnership.

Over 100 residents contributed to The Last Landscape, a photographic exhibition of the last remaining strip of Portland’s land untouched by quarrying. A Mesolithic settlement site is still visible in this treasured space, as are medieval strip farming systems. Digging below the topographical surface, Harvest Shorts explores our relationship with farming, land and food with short film screenings at Royal Manor Theatre. 

For the first time this year, a digital programme entitled That Other Place will also run alongside the main festival, curated by Nairobi artists’ collective Creatives Garage. This alternative digital Portland will host a variety of international artists and events, providing visitors with an online space in which to create and experiment.

Championing new talent is a key aim of b-side; the festival runs an extensive mentor-scheme with upcoming artists and curators in a bid to retain talent in the area. Having commissioned the artwork via open call over two years ago, the festival encourages artists to take risks, allows them to expand their creative practice and enables new connections to be made with the residents of Portland. 

Rocca Holly-Nambi, Director of b-side comments, Come and journey across the Isle of Portland with the b-side festival - its artists and artworks as your guide. The themes within these new commissions and the island itself become a microcosm to ponder, discuss and debate our world's pressing concerns - and opportunities - of climate change, human care and compassion, and the commons. We believe so strongly in the connection between b-side festival and sustainable tourism and encourage residents and visitors alike to come and engage with these innovative and unusual artworks, while exploring and enjoying all this magical island has to offer.

Serving a final hit of culture after the summer holidays, b-side Festival is proud to embrace sustainable cultural tourism. All the artwork commissioned is site-responsive, revealing the marginal and sometimes overlooked elements of the coastal towns and communities. The festival targets both the local community and UK-wide audiences, presenting work from exceptional Portland creatives alongside world-renowned international artists. Accessibility and inclusion are explored in works like The Portland Office for Imaginary History Mobility Scooter. These themes have directly informed the accessibility needs of all visitors, visible in level-access walks, mobility scooters tours and free trishaw rides across the island.

b-side is run by a collaborative team of artists, producers and curators with extensive experience in visual arts, live art, performance, social practice, heritage, environment and arts education. In 2012, b-side was awarded funding from Arts Council England to become a National Portfolio Organisation.