Bloomsbury Festival 2022

A quick look at the 2022 Bloomsbury Festival, in which I sampled but a small number of the events on offer under the theme ‘Breathe’.

Bloomsbury Festival 2022

I’ve said before that a great feature of London life is that there’s always something on. In fact the problem is likely to be that there’s too much to keep up with. And a lot of the most interesting content comes through festivals. There are the performances I’ve seen through GDIF or the London International Mime Festival, for instance. And the Bloomsbury Festival is another to add to my cultural calendar.

Bloomsbury has a long association as a cultural hotspot, of course. Particularly in the field of art and literature – the Bloomsbury Group circle which included Virginia Woolf may spring to mind. The Bloomsbury Festival began in 2006 and is “an explosion of arts, culture and science”. As well as the annual festival, the organisation supports a calendar of engagement and arts across the year. This year’s festival ran from 14 to 23 October, and the Salterton Arts Review was able to get along to a few interesting events and exhibitions.

In an interesting parallel with work by Julianknxx I saw recently at Brixton House, the theme Breathe relates partly to the high levels of pollution seen in some parts of Bloomsbury adjacent to main roads. Other works reflect on the pandemic, loss and recovery. There was a broad range of events to choose from including theatre, music, talks, guided walks, family events and more. You can find out more (or sign up for future event alerts) here on their website.

The Old Black Door – Sinister Masterplan / RADA Studios

The first Bloomsbury Festival event I attended was The Old Black Door. This was a blend of storytelling and music themed, appropriately enough for the leadup to Halloween, around death. Storytelling was provided by Laura Sampson and Polis Loizou, taking turns to share stories that were by variously spooky, funny and tender. They had complementary styles – Sampson’s stories tended to be sort of universal, while Loizou’s were more rooted in a particular place and time. Adrian Taylor bookended the performance with an original song which gave the evening its name. And Sam Enthoven provided sound artistry to accompany the stories and take them from pure storytelling into something more performative.

I love a bit of storytelling, so very much enjoyed this event. The only difficulty I had was trying to focus at once on the story being told and the sound effects and how they were being produced. Enthoven gave us a run through in the beginning of the instruments at his disposal, which included a theremin and part of a dishrack! You can read more about his take on the event here.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children At London’s Foundling Hospital – Foundling Museum

I do feel like festivals bend the rules a little sometimes, by listing events that are happening anyway as part of their schedule. This may be one such listing. In any case, it was already an exhibition I was planning to see. So I was happy to be able to incorporate it into a day at the Bloomsbury Festival.

Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital is an exhibition based on extensive archival research and the relatively ‘tiny traces’ of African and Asian children’s lives that resulted. We know that not all the children at the Foundling Hospital were white. But tracing them often relies on accidents of history. A mother explaining hers or the father’s background in her petition. A note on skin colour on admission. Even where we know something of a child’s ethnic background, the lack of information on most Foundlings after they left the Hospital is a barrier to tracing them in later life.

Given the scant historic evidence, this is an interesting exhibition. The largely documentary source material is bolstered by thematically-linked contemporary art, including by Kehinde Wiley. This makes it more visually interesting than it might otherwise be, and also provides self-representation by Black and Asian individuals (the primary materials, of course, are largely writing about the children by white authority figures). And an interesting thread which comes through the exhibition is the extent to which all children had equal access to the basic resources of the Foundling Hospital. African and Asian children had wetnurses, doctor’s visits, apprenticeships and the like, just as their white counterparts did. That is not to disavow the additional prejudices they faced in society, but is a positive reflection on the Foundling Hospital benefactors.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital on until 19 February 2023

A Lump In The Throat – Giuseppe Mario Urso / St George’s Bloomsbury

I have long intended to visit St George’s Bloomsbury, one of six remaining Hawksmoor churches in London. But as it turns out, my first visit was under the auspices of the Bloomsbury Festival. I came to see A Lump in the Throat, an audio installation by Giuseppe Mario Urso. It is a memorial to the victims of coronavirus, through the story of Orpheus and Euridice.

The story of Orpheus and his failed quest to retrieve his love Euridice from the underworld is an old one. It has been retold countless times, including as the opera Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck in 1762. Urso takes an aria from this opera (sung by Anastasia Jones) and layers it in multiple languages. Urso dedicates his Covid-19 memorial to those who came back from the brink as well as those who lost their lives during the pandemic, and the different languages refer to this global impact.

It is a peaceful work, well suited to the contemplative church interior. That the recording is of the St Paul’s Girls’ School Chamber Orchestra is all the more impressive.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

What Else Was On?

As I said at the outset, there was plenty! If I didn’t pack my cultural schedule so tightly already, there were some theatre and other listings I was interested in and would have liked to see. As it is, I managed to get to a couple of outdoor photography exhibitions which you can see above.

Mangled, by Kios Miah, is a very personal response to the first Covid lockdown and the loss of a friend to cancer shortly afterwards. Images of nature (‘environmental portraits’) taken with an analogue camera line Brunswick Square Gardens, along with abstract pieces of writing and poetry. This exhibition matched the autumnal landscape well, and was peaceful and meditative. Remembering the Streets of the Past by Jessica Strang is a series of images of Kings Cross taken in 1987. Strang passed away in 2021 so this is a tribute to her work, as well as to London’s past. I almost missed it despite having the address from the Bloomsbury Festival website, as the photographs had replaced property listings at Greater London Properties on Judd Street.

If any of the above captures your imagination or if you’re feeling inspired to seek out local festivals, keep an eye on https://bloomsburyfestival.org.uk/ to be first to find out about next year’s offerings.