Our home is your home! Welcome back. Once again, the Shangri-La creators open up their actual homes for invited guests to take over for the weekend.
Come and unite under the incredible symbolic structure of resistance and take part in our powerful protest party that raises up the underrepresented. Let’s rewrite history together.
Talks and workshops 3-8pm, Music 8pm-close
NOMAD is a new area and home for the underrepresented to unite and take up space, where new future possibilities can be imagined and pathways forged. We come together to celebrate migration, nomadic cultures through a shared vision of the future Featuring some of the UK’s most inspiring and subversive minds, these artists, innovators, culture jammers, activists and anarchists invite you to explore what community is and can become. Take part in a multitude of workshops, talks, interactive installations, sculptures and soundscapes to educate and inspire, bring your families; all ages, all genders, all welcome.
The Nomad Bus Stage was painted by Xenz @xenzogram
Highlights include:
DANNY PRICE PRESENTS THE RIOT SOCIETY
Danny is bringing The Riot Society to Shangri-La to take his messages out of the digital space, and into a live setting in order to interact with people and shine a new light on what he is doing. The Riot Society is a mixture of interactive comedy and live sketches, as well as a panel talking about modernity and politics with a satirical twist. Danny will be joined by TikTok political commentator, Supertanskiii and comedian Aid Thompsin as well as two special guests to discuss the death of satire and the rise of ridiculous politics and policy, and inviting you to get involved. There will be tons of hilarious activities for you to join in with as Danny addresses current issues and has a laugh while he does it.
PXSSY PALACE TAKEOVER: NADINE NOOR, RYAN LOVELL, MYA MEHMI + GUESTS
Pxssy Palace is an arts platform rooted in intentional nightlife, celebrating black, indigenous and people of colour who are Queer, Intersex, Trans or Non-binary. Providing space to dance, connect and engage, whilst encouraging consent, sexual freedom, pleasure, expression and exploration of our authentic selves. Pxssy Palace is so proud of the amazing range of music that QTBIPOC artists play, create and have shaped throughout history; expect to hear everything from R&B, Hip-Hop, Afrobeats, Dancehall, Desi and Pop to House, Jersey, Techno, Ballroom, Gqom, Amapiano, Dembow, Bass, Footwork and much much more.
LONDON TRANS + PRIDE & THE CHATEAU PRESENT: THE SUMMER OF RAGE
London Trans+ Pride and The Chateau come together once again to bring you The Summer of Rage, a day and night of trans community, revelry and resistance at Shangri-La 2023. Gather at the London Trans+ Pride Hub throughout Saturday afternoon for a collective picnic and hangout. Expect chilled summer of trans love vibes, where we can put our rage to collective use: bring food, bring friends. At night proceedings will transition to a riotous and exuberant party celebrating trans love and rage in all its forms, curated by The Chateau and featuring some of the finest trans and queer DJs and performers from London and beyond.
NOMAD INSTALLATIONS:
Care in the Community
Experience a unique way of life and enjoy a cuppa by the fire with the Care In The Community crew. A chance to sit back and enjoy the simple things in life, cuddle up in the cosy Bender and learn about traveller history and culture.
Also stop and give Feels on Wheels – Massage by Martha a visit for a holistic chair massage.
Offering short, affordable and effective massages for you.
Driveabout Projection Van
“DRIVEABOUT Projection is a customised ex-military vehicle. Originally a mobile radar tower, this vintage VW LT35 is now used for art, activism and guerrilla projection.
It’s exterior is a blackboard, creating a unique canvas where people can draw over it’s entire surface. At night it comes to life as a light installation with UV, disco, LED lights and video. Owned & operated by Shaun PRICKIMAGE, a live visual & light artist based in UK in collaboration with More Eyes.”
The Edible Bus Stop
BEYOND BELEAF merges industrial aesthetics with a biophilic vision of the future, integrating analogue and digital creative disciplines. Rejuvenating an industrial setting with lush tropical planting, the installation welcomes festival-goers to rediscover their connection with nature through touch, sound, scent, and sight.
Helena Doyle
Fast fashion is based on the exploitation of people and the planet, using advertising to gloss over the truth. 60% of fast fashion garments end up in a landfill within a year. We’re not buying it.
Jack Wimperis
“The Lactolite is a made up of thousands of recycled 1 litre plastic milk bottles each embedded with an addressable Pixel LED creating a very low resolution 360° video screen. It can be programmed via computer in an infinite number of ways. It’s like watching an animated warhol painting through a kaleidoscope while diving on a coral reef…”
Project Bunny Rabbit
This year’s Project Bunny Rabbit structure ‘NOMAD and the Watchtower’ is made up of interconnecting parts and is a metaphor for: if people join together as communities and stand up against injustices in these super difficult times, we have the power to make a change.
Morgan, the Project Bunny Rabbit head engineer, is currently serving 3.5 years in prison for peaceful protest and has designed this year’s structure from behind bars through sending out sketches and making amends over the phone.
They have managed to expand and accomplish all of this despite Morgan being in prison
Recently the bill preventing the right to protest has come into effect, and a new bill, the Public Order bill, has just been passed which restricts the right to protest even further and increases surveillance on known protestors.
They want people to know that things are getting worse, increasingly draconian and dystopian.
Similar structures to the bamboo towers in ‘NOMAD and the Watchtower’ have been used to block roads and have been super effective at various protests – outside Rupert Murdoch’s printing press, outside Amazon distribution centres on Black Friday.
Recently the bills preventing the right to protest has come into effect, and a new bill – the public order bill – has just been passed which restricts the right to protest even more.
Rockaway Park’s Chapel Of Unrest
“Crowdfunding a permanent monument to Change, Creativity and protest in the unnatural wilderness that is Rockaway Park.
Mark Wilson owns Rockaway Park in Bristol, a space for 30 creatives to live communally that also hosts gigs, art installations, work spaces and events. There is a curved steel structure at Rockaway Park that was first used for a wedding back in 2018, and when the council tried to make Mark pay business rates for it, Mark replied that it should be exempt as he considered it a church.
The council told Mark that in order to be exempt, you need to have a recognised religion, so when he googled “”what constitutes a recognised religion?”” the first response was that you needed 60,000 “”believers””. This got him thinking that if each of the members were to pay £10 to join, he would very soon have £600,000 pounds to build this “”church””.
This money will fund some of the best creative people on the Chapel of Unrest’s scene, to build and in turn, celebrate ‘its people’, and what they stand for, and ultimately help fund many other projects close to the team’s hearts. By the time the Chapel arrives at Shangri-La this year, it will already have upwards of 1,200 members and growing steadily.
The Chapel will have stained glass windows, which will tell the story of the now illegal act of protest, and at Shangri-La they will be sharing some of this tale with the help of a railway carriage full of information and imagery where people can learn about the history of the movement, and how to join in and support the cause.”
Sam Williams
A playful exploration of balance between the sustainability of resources and the desire to progress, NOT ALL THAT SHIMMERS takes its name from the aphorism “All that glitters is not gold” meaning that not everything that looks precious or true turns out to be so.
Spac£ Sucks
“Spac£ Sucks is an abandoned Space Station. A long-forgotten relic from the race to Mars between SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, all companies owned by the world’s billionaires. Spac£ Sucks is a cautionary tale of hubris, greed and capitalism.
Spac£ Sucks represents the abandonment of Earth and all its wonders. Looking beyond the dome and at the projections on its walls we see what we value – human connection, plant kind, dance, music, nature, community, touch, trees, anarchy – Shangri-La. The powers of humankind working circularly within our planetary boundaries.
The cost of living is rising steadily, the housing crisis has been constant and cash-money is not limited, but abundant, only unfairly distributed on earth. The rich rocket into a new stratosphere, cash from Space Travel conglomerates lining their pockets never to return while we sit back and watch the world burn. SPAC£ SUCKS. “
Stuart Semple
Saturday 3pm D.A.B.A {destroy all bad art}
Stuart Semple, performance, 2023.
Participate in this new happening by Stuart Semple, by destroying your concepts of bad art and making way for a vibrant and colourful new future.
WHAT MUST GO?
Stuart Semple, 2023
Are you ready to let go? Participate in a brand new installation by British artist Stuart Semple. Watch water turn to ink in front of your eyes before completely disappearing and taking the past with it.
EXTRA: Each of us has things we wished would stop. One person’s Ed Sheeran is another person’s Scott Walker, bacon is evil or a luxury breakfast, 5g is a nightmare to some and a crazy consipiracy to others. In this work multi-disciplinary artist Stuart Semple presents a very special billboard project, where visiors can contribute their ideas for eradication. Painting their wishes in nothing but water, in front of their eyes it becomes black ink before vanishing forever. “
Waste Exchange
The Waste Exchange shares alternative ways to transform waste into memorable moments and empowering experiences that build collaborative change and transform circular creative opportunities into ways that bring the community together.
Wondercloud
The Wondercloud Truck of Doors was once the home of Shangri-La’s Creative Director Kaye Dunnings and Site and Build Manager Willy Brothwood.
Originally built by the artist Tony Horneker for Block 9, the truck was rescued from the scrap heap and was used as the backdrop and greenroom for the first Nomad Stage in 2022.
Kaye and Willy lived in it over the first lockdown winter in 2020 while they were building their home from the original shipping containers that formed the legendary Clash Stage in Shangri-La 2017/2019. They are proud to be long term residents at Rockaway Park in Temple Cloud – come see the truck parked up next to the Chapel Of Unrest and learn more about the project.
Wondercloud is a sustainable set building company that uses recycled materials to create works of art at festivals and events in the UK and beyond.
Other works in the area are by Perspicere where you’ll see him creating his biggest piece to date made entirely from thread, Benjamin Irritants bunnies will be popping up around site, Xenz will spread his beautiful organic art throughout the area and keep your eyes peeled for Helen Bur’s Watch Out for the Little People. “The little people are an ongoing project, with figures found hiding in alleyways and street corners across the globe, from India to Norway. The figures often depict people local to each community, when’re they become subtly eternised in the public place. Always depicted from behind, there is a with-holding of identity which brings a universal association alongside a sense of enigma and ambiguity.
Like much of Helen’s work they deal with polarity: revealing and concealing, becoming objects of curiosity and our searching gaze, functioning to display yet conceal the experience of seeing. We watch them as they watch. They give us questions, not answers. The Rückenfigur, or the figure from behind, is a pictorial and compositional device often used by artists.”