Dorset’s Isle of Portland found itself the centre of attention for a controversial reason after the docking of the Bibby Stockholm, the hulking barge towed in to house hundreds of people seeking asylum in Britain.
But now a “weird and wonderful” arts festival called b-side involving scores of artists, international and local, is taking place and should show off this out-of-the-way spot in a much different light.
“Portland has a vibrant community and a strong artistic scene,” said the festival’s director, Rocca Holly-Nambi. “The place is magical – but it’s also got the Bibby Stockholm here, it’s got two prisons, it’s been constantly quarried. It’s been done to a lot. Through the arts, we’re trying to set up stuff we can do together.”
The event, which begins on Thursday 7 September, will include a community parade on 17 September under the banner Keep Portland Weird and Wonderful. Some may take the chance to express views on the barge. “There will be people who will want to use that to state their position,” said Holly-Nambi. “We’ve got to let that happen.”
It feels like there are more art shops and studios than everyday shops in parts of the island, which has pinched the “Keep Portland Weird” tagline from its namesake in Oregon, USA.
“Empty spaces that have been created by economic struggles have been taken over by artists,” said Holly-Nambi. “It’s not in that gentrified Brick Lane [London] way. It’s a place to escape and not many people know about it. That’s the fine line of b-side, trying to promote the arts here, celebrate the island, but also keep the island what it is: unusual, awkward and sometimes tense.”
Holly-Nambi said one of the islanders’ main complaints about the Bibby Stockholm was the lack of consultation. “If you’re going to bring new residents to the island, wonderful. Portland is a super welcoming place. We get people from all over: tourists, climbers, artists. But it’s a community that deserves the respect of dialogue.”
New artworks created for the festival include Entry, a haunting film installation focusing on a tumbledown Tudor cottage on Portland’s Brandy Row by the artists Anna Heinrich and Leon Palmer.
The “Entry” is a doorway, which has remained in place while the building has changed dramatically over the years. “The cottage looks as if it has been hammered not just but by storms, but by the life,” said Palmer. “It’s been demolished and rebuilt,” said Heinrich. “The constant is the doorway.” Talking to the people of Portland about the building has led to conversations about home and place and who ends up in such a place – themes that seem all the more relevant given the presence of the barge.
An event that is bound to have particular relevance to the Bibby Stockholm is Materials of Practice, a discussion about home, land and migration from the Dhaqan Collective, a feminist art grouping of Somali women.
But other events and pieces will come as welcome relief from the politics that has swirled around the island all summer. Emily Tracy, who makes small sculptural pieces, collages and artists’ books, has worked with local ornithologists to create a visualisation of the work completed over 60 years at the Portland Bird Observatory.
At a community garden, visitors can pick up a vintage phone and listen to words such as bluebell, kingfisher and acorn that have been dropped from a children’s dictionary because of lack of use.
Alongside the main events, a fringe festival will also take place featuring local artists, professional and amateur. People have been invited to exhibit art in windows, front gardens, doorsteps and beach huts as well as studios.
The glass artist Emma Bradley, the fringe coordinator, said 10 people had taken part in the first fringe two years ago. Now there are almost 50. “There’s loads of creativity on the island,” she said. We’re trying to get islanders to show off what they can do.”
Bradley said some were using the festival to think about something apart form the Bibby Stockholm, but others were – inevitably – responding to it.
One resident in Fortuneswell, just up the hill from the barge, is creating a collage highlighting the diversity that asylum seekers bring, while the Portland Global Friendship Group is running a “Let Music Unite” event on a beach.
And the islander Linda Levi has written a poem called This Land (Home), which includes the hopeful-sounding lines: “Now a safe haven for many here/Is this land we call home”.
The main festival runs 7-10 September; the fringe 7-17 September. https://b-side.org.uk/
