Spring ceremonials: a Beltane celebration.
Spring ceremonials; a Beltane celebration.
May the 1st marks the midway point between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. It is a time of fertility and natural abundance; a marriage of sun and earth. The druids of our Celtic lineage in Britain marked this time with the fire festival known as Beltane. Over thousands of years influence and customs transformed, but these nature based celebrations lived on becoming the folk festival known as May day alive in the memories of people today. Spring ceremonials seeks to work with this symbolism, reinterpreting these ancient Druidic rituals and folk customs of Britain in a contemporary culture. To welcome in the summer and reflect upon the bountiful month of May.
Spring Ceremonials is a collaboration between multimedia artists during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have explored making work together as novice filmmakers with the minimalist resources & working environment shaped by strict lockdown regulations. This is the second instalment of a growing pool of collaborative works focused on ritual, lore and the land.
The artists:
Dougal Kirkland
Kirkland’s work centres around Ritual, Myth, Land and Lore working with a variety of media including installation, performance and drawing- listening to the land with a mythic perspective. Creative direction, performance and editing. Instagram: @dougalkirkland
Emma Thistlethwaite
A florist and founder of floral studio ‘Thistle by Nature’. Working with an array of botanicals to alchemise designs in ode to Mother nature. With an interested in plant & flower lore, herbalism and magic, she aims to marry these ideas together through the means of her botanical work. Floral designs, performance and creative co-direction. Instagram: @thistlebynature
Emlyn Bainbridge
A songwriter and musician, one half of electronic band and conceptual music project Orbury Common exploring folklore, alternate realities and landscape. Song writing, Music production. Instagram: @orburycommon
A strange phenomenon occurred as a by-product of these potent rituals: they evoked an alchemical reaction in the mirror-world of Orbury Common, an otherly place where lost memories live, and where pagan traditions survive and thrive. The inter-worldly ripple created by these artists caused a warping and re-fabrication of their treasured footage, now accompanied by joyous orb-song, that came spilling back into our world with a clatter of Morris-sticks, a boom of Celtic drum and a whistle of flute.