Sounds from the Other City: Meet the art directors
For the last three years, Sounds from the Other City has appointed an art director to oversee the look and feel of the festival. This year's artist, himHallows, gives us a taste of what to expect – from cardboard crustaceans to a masquerade ball.
Greater Manchester isn’t short of festivals; you could fill your year with cultural happenings and stay well within the M postcode zone. Over the past 12 years Sounds from the Other City has become a stalwart on that calendar. Taking place in venues up and down Salford’s Chapel Street on May bank holiday Sunday, Sounds (as it is more fondly known) stands out as being something quite special in the line-up of great Mancunian festivals.
The all-dayer, which each year seems to grow in ambition and scale, has since 2014 appointed art directors to produce a festival-wide creative commission. Describing the journey as “an organic experience,” festival directors Riv Burns and Mark Carlin explain that the decision to introduce the role has helped “tie together all the many and varied venues, and break down quite a few barriers between artist and audience.”
After the success of working with artist collective Volkov Commanders on two stages within Islington Mill for the 2012 festival, SFTOC asked them back for a trailblazer event, ORBIT, in late 2012. This event was the catalyst for the first official festival-wide creative commission, which saw Volkov Commanders direct the look and feel of the 2014 festival – and in Burns’s words, “run wild!” Then in 2015, Liverpool-based creative costumers Costumologists and performance artists Faux Queens took on the task of SFTOC's art direction. By employing traditional party paraphernalia along with performance, micro-environments and sculpture, they “infected” the festival with “micro cosmic delirium and a epidemic of P-A-R-T-Y hysteria.”
As a spectator, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Sounds from the Other City has been to watch the commissions unfold as the day goes by. What begins as a group of performers and volunteers soon grows to include bands, revellers and those who aren’t even attending the festival – as happened to Costumologists and Faux Queens last year. “We accidentally interrupted a birthday party on the estate, and the reaction from the kids was pretty special,” they remember. “They had their very own gang of clowns for 15 minutes.”
This year's art direction will build on these successes, and those who are well attuned to Manchester's music scene will no doubt have seen the new art director's work gracing the promotional material of a gig or two. So it seems quite fitting that Paul Hallows – known as himHallows – has been appointed as art director for a festival that champions the local underground and DIY music scene.
Having attended all but one SFTOC, himHallows took part in Volkov Commanders' inaugural creative commission with his incredible Nebula Crab costume (watch out for it this year!), and produced the stage design for promoters Bad Uncle’s venue in 2015. This, paired with his – dare we say it – occult-like ability to turn a cardboard box into out-of-this-world creations, made himHallows the natural choice for the festival's 12th edition.
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Describing his experience of working with SFTOC as “really, really fun,” Hallows promises to add a creative garnish to what he confesses is his favourite day of the year, “even including Christmas.” His concept for the art direction of the 2016 festival is billed as “trawling the deep sea to bring the New Occult™ to Chapel Street.”
Currently working as a one-man band, himHallows will soon be making a call-out for volunteers to assist him with the task of building cardboard creations that will transform a number of venues along the Chapel Street corridor, including props for Sounds’ first live-broadcasting ‘telly studio,’ SFTOC TV. His cardboard extravaganza, which so far consists of an impressive, many-faced headpiece – his Vitruvian Man – will culminate in the nucleolus of his commission, a masquerade ball, which will be held in The Burrow at Islington Mill when the afterparty kicks off.
The 2016 commission looks set to continue Volkov Commanders', Costumologists' and Faux Queens' legacy of unifying the festival, by giving those attending the opportunity to become a part of the art direction. Hoping that audience members will be ready to channel the mystical, himHallows encourages revellers to design and wear their own masks inspired by the deep waters at the New Occult™ masquerade ball. The best will be awarded a prize by the captain himself.
Speaking to the different directors, what is overridingly clear is how passionate they have all been about SFTOC. By adding their creative imprint, the art directors are able to create a harmony between all the elements that make up the festival – and it is this which makes Sounds one of the more unique festivals on Greater Manchester's cultural calendar. Hallows explains how the opportunity to work on the commission has allowed him to “turn the ideas in my head into reality, providing a purpose to my drawings and costumes.” Similarly for Costumologists and Faux Queens, the role allowed them to work in collaboration, which fitted their combined ethos and aesthetic.
By offering unrestricted creativity while simultaneously championing outrageous fun and a DIY spirit, Sounds from the Other City offers something quite unique. “The great thing about it is that, because it is such an unusual festival, it's not a festival that is primarily about the music,” Hallows says. “Being part of the day involves hanging out with people, seeing the unusual things that go on, all kinds of crazy shit. It’s just really nice to be involved in it. It’s unlike any festival I have ever been to.”
Sounds from the Other City takes place 1 May, Chapel Street, Salford
soundsfromtheothercity.com
The Skinny is running a competition at this year's Sounds from the Other City to win prizes kindly donated by the festival's promoters and friends. To enter, all you have to do is share your photos of the day on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #SFTOCSkinny.
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