Big Chill serves up art alongside the music (From Hereford Times)

Big Chill serves up art alongside the music

1:43pm Thursday 2nd July 2009 in

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UNIQUE among the summer’s festivals for offering a curated art programme, The Big Chill once again presents some of the UK’s most exciting artists at the Eastnor site with two site-specific installations by sculptors Henry Krokatsis and Claire Morgan.

Krokatsis’s piece is a detailed and intricate structure combining the architecture of a lighthouse and a helter skelter set on the lake by the main stage and illuminated after dark.

Claire Morgan, meanwhile, will create a dome ceiling within the canopy of three oak trees.

Artist Cedric Christie was inspired by a charitable initiative staged in Paris by film director Jean Luc Godard to create a charity project entitled Blank Canvas, which will see tents transformed into artworks by leading names in the art and fashion world, including Peter Blake, Rachel Whiteread and Vivienne Westwood.

Each tent will be auctioned individually, and the proceeds divided equally between charities, chosen by the artists, raising awareness of homelessness around the world.

Alongside the curated programme, this year’s Big Chillers will also be able to attend the Art Car Boot Fair, the ‘country’s funkiest art fair’, and Rankin Live! in which photographer Rankin will be inviting Big Chillers to have their portrait taken for just £50, helping to raise funds for Oxfam.

But the art isn’t limited to the festival, with an education and outreach programme encouraging collaboration between the community and the Big Chill by giving local schoolchildren and students the opportunity to be taught by a range of artists to develop art work and performances for the festival.

Worcester-based artists have recently been working with Eastnor and Ledbury primary schools to produce a micro thatched cottage to be pulled around the site by bicycle, while poet Shane Solanki is leading year seven pupils from John Masefield High School to produce poems and spoken word pieces be be performed at both Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Big Chill.

For further information about all things Big Chill, visit bigchill.net.