Greenbelt: Acts of the Imagination

Much of my time at this year's Greenbelt was enjoyably spent at the various contributions from St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge. Read a report on our involvement here and listen to the Radio 4 Daily Service from Greenbelt produced by Andrew Earis here.

Outside of those sessions I also saw something of the following, with standouts being the Celestial Sound Cloud, Communion Service, Anthony Reddie, and The Welcome Wagon:

• Alessi’s Ark - Her voice is delicate and her arrangements are lush and soaring (Mojo praises her "impeccable taste"), with an indie sensibility that recalls vintage-era Cardigans with a pinch of the Breeders. 
• Celestial Sound Cloud presented by Pif-Paf - The Celestial Sound Cloud is an interactive digital sound and light sculpture inspired by cosmic clouds and nebulas – the clouds of dust and gases in which stars are formed. Its beautiful swooping mirror layered material sits elusively and tantalisingly in its environment – stunning by day or night.
• Duke Special - Ever-curious about theatre, poetry, love, life, redemption, death, and gramophone records, Duke consistently finds new seams of inspiration to mine, always trying to get to the bottom of what it means to be human.
• Grace Petrie - Grace’s self-released album Heart First Aid Kit made it into Mojo’s 2017 top ten. Her unique takes on life, love and politics, and the warmth and wit with which they are delivered, have won over an army of loyal fans across the alternative, folk, political and comedy scenes.
• Kate Raworth - Kate is a renegade economist committed to the rewriting of economics so it is fit for 21st century challenges. 
• Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires - The Glory Fires draw deeply from punk, soul, power pop, country, and gospel, with a strong socio-political message - systems of privilege and oppression are dragged into the light. 
• Matthew David Morris is an artist, a cultivator of good questions, a trainee priest and lover of the human heart.
• Song of the Trees by Meg Wroe - Song of the Trees is a series of paintings on wooden panels. Images of trees are carved into plywood, giving texture as well as form. In her current work Meg is interested in the hidden, overlooked aspect of her urban landscape. “I notice moments of wonder in the ordinary – the way transformation happens through acts of the imagination.
• Professor Anthony G Reddie is one of the foremost black theologians in the UK today. As an Extraordinary Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of South Africa and a Fellow of Wesley House in Cambridge, he has written over 70 essays and articles on Christian Education and Black Theology.
• Radical, activist, spiritual, feminist, challenging state and church, standing up to the powers that be, railing against the patriarchal status quo, a beacon of inspiration and sign of bravery for those all over the world who want change but perhaps feel too timid to try to make it – that’s Pussy Riot. Their iconoclastic show about Maria Alyokhina's Riot Days book is pacey, poetic, prophetic, but above all it is punk. This is art. This is protest. 
• Communion: Windrush and Carnival - The service was led by sisters and brothers of faith and colour. Like the first disciples of Jesus, huddled in an upper room, looking out at a hostile and hardening culture, we felt the Wind-rush of God’s multi-coloured Spirit as we imagined and enacted another world. We celebrated carnival with music from Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir and contributions and leading from Rev Winnie Varghese, Chine McDonald, Evie Vernon and George Luke.
• The Welcome Wagon - Partners in music and life, Monique and Thomas describe themselves as uncool, which probably means they’re very cool. Either way they serve up a refreshingly uncomplicated brew of gospel music which nonetheless draws on a deep history of sacred song traditions. No feigned emotions, no stylistic pretensions; quite literally awesome.
• We Are Scientists - "In the past," opines bassist Chris Cain of US powerpoppers We Are Scientists, "we’ve used our music to awaken people to the depth and complexity of moral concerns." As for their latest work, "We really wanted to drop a fun-bomb." Welcome to Greenbelt, where enlightenment and f-bombs happily co-exist.

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The Welcome Wagon - He Never Said A Mumbling Word.