Rockaway Park ready for annual family-friendly Arts Weekend

If past numbers are anything to go by, Rockaway Park’s annual arts weekend (RAW) is already a calendar fixture for many.

On September 15-17, in a packed three days at the former scrap yard turned creative wonderground at Temple Cloud, visitors can expect to browse work from a plethora of resident and guest artists, crafters, makers and performers.

There are also plenty of demonstrations, workshops, and free children’s activities available daily, before ticketed music and film events in the evening. Vegan food will be available, made with fresh ingredients from the community forest garden.

Rockaway residents opening up their studios on site include Carry on Screening, artistic blacksmith Demian Bellaart, sculptor, inventor and maker, Sam Copsey, street artist and painter, Get Rowdy, whose work around Bristol will already be familiar to many.

Satirical artist Spelling Mistakes Costs Lives – who has produced pieces for Shangri-La at Glastonbury Festival, inflatable artist Filthy Luker, and artist, singer/songwriter and rock balancer Dick Lucas are amongst the guest artists who will be showing work across the weekend.

Montage of work from Get Rowdy

Montage of work from Filthy Luker

On Friday night, The Hawkmen soundtrack the official RAW launch party, with support from Los Dedos.

Joined on the night by Nick Harper, Saturday evening sees the return of Commoners Choir, the Leeds-based four-part vocal harmony group who have recently gifted a song to Rockaway in deference to their unique Chapel of Unrest project. They are dedicated to singing about injustice, often gathering in unconventional spaces to do so.

The conclusion to the weekend’s events sees the premiere of brand-new film Crass: The Sound of Free Speech (The Story of Reality Asylum) by Class & Culture films, in collaboration with sansculotte, Berlin, and Laszlo Umbreit, Brussels.

One of the earliest anarcho-punk bands in the UK, Crass formed in 1977 and were active for seven years.

Gee Vaucher of the 1970s anarchist-punk band Crass

This feature-length documentary, made with the band’s blessing, charts their journey, as well as the challenging, often hostile societal context in which they were making their music.

After the screening at the Chapel of Unrest, Crass band members Gee Vaucher and Penny Rimbaud will be joining Brandon Spivey for a special Q&A.

All year, work has continued apace on the impressive Chapel building and grounds – an ever-unfolding process documented by founder and creator of the whole Rockaway project, Mark Wilson.

The Chapel now has an intergenerational ‘congregation of agitation’ that stretches across the world, with an ever growing number of members from Europe and the UK to Japan, North and South America, New Zealand, Australia and Israel.

Work on the Chapel grounds

One such member is Jane Mason, for whom the Chapel of Unrest is a beacon of hope: “It represents the core of Rockaway,” she says.

“A symbol of belief and faith in our abilities to make change and constantly challenge the status quo.”

The Rockaway Arts Weekend is at Rockaway Park on 15-17 September, with free entry to daytime activities (11am-5pm) and ticketed evening events (7pm-11pm) purchasable via www.eventbrite.co.uk: The Hawkmen & Los Dedos on Friday 15; Commoners Choir & Nick Harper on Saturday 16; and film + Q&A – Crass: The Sound of Free Speech (The Story of Reality Asylum) on Sunday 17.

For more information and links to galleries for all guest artists, visit www.rockawaypark.co.uk, where you can also donate or become a member of The Chapel of Unrest.

All photos: Rockaway Park

Read next:

• Commoners Choir to perform at Rockaway Park’s Chapel of Unrest
• From scrap yard to creative community: the evolution of Rockaway Park

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