Each summer, the lush fields of Somerset become home to one of the world’s most iconic cultural gatherings: Glastonbury Festival. While it's globally celebrated for legendary musical performances and immersive party experiences, Glastonbury is equally distinguished by its rich undercurrent of activism, especially in the distinctive district known as Shangri-La.
Shangri-La isn’t merely an art installation or themed area. It's a radical village-within-a-village, a sprawling utopia of experimental creativity where artists, thinkers, performers, and provocateurs gather to explore what it means to live, create, and resist in the shadow of capitalism. In 2024, this zone becomes a provocative platform for visual statements that dissect consumer culture, data surveillance, social inequality, and burnout.
Here, creativity isn't passive — it's insurgent. Art in Shangri-La is loaded with meaning and emotion, constructed not just to entertain but to catalyze conversation, provoke discomfort, and invite reimagination. At a time when the lines between rebellion and brand culture are increasingly blurred, the artists in this unconventional zone attempt to navigate — and interrogate — the system from within.
Supermarkets Reimagined: Retail as Rebellion
One of the most compelling and provocative installations at Glastonbury Festival 2024 can be found within the boundary-pushing environment of Shangri-La — a place where rebellion and imagination collide. Titled Capitalism To GOGO, this unapologetically chaotic, anti-capitalist art experience is the work of visual provocateur Hannah Dickins. Far from being a conventional art piece, this immersive installation engulfs visitors in a vividly saturated simulation of a dystopian supermarket — one shaped by greed, inequality, and late-stage consumerism.
At first glance, Capitalism To GOGO might appear like a garish parody of a high-street discount store. However, what unfolds is something far more layered. With graphic overload, synthetic cheer, and hollow marketing promises, the space simulates the hyper-consumption that dominates modern culture, revealing the absurdity and tragedy embedded in its aesthetics. The installation turns everyday retail symbols into instruments of cultural dissection.
Visual Overload as Weaponized Design
Visitors who step into the installation are immediately enveloped by a surreal and exaggerated version of familiar commercial space — one that is simultaneously amusing and unsettling. Walls are plastered with outrageous sale signs in frenetic reds and yellows, accompanied by slogans like “Everything Must Go,” “Shop Till We Drop,” and “Taste the Privilege.” These phrases, rooted in recognizable marketing lingo, are twisted to expose the undercurrent of desperation and exploitation that drives mass-market retail environments.
The lighting is deliberately harsh, the colors intentionally clashing, and the visuals feel like a chaotic remix of budget supermarkets, infomercial aesthetics, and end-of-the-world sales events. The noise of mock announcements and looping jingles creates a sensory storm that disorients even the most seasoned festival-goers. Yet this is not accidental design — it is calculated confusion that mirrors the chaos of capitalist marketing tactics.
Hannah Dickins explains that she embraces visual cacophony not only as a stylistic choice but as a deliberate act of sabotage. “There’s a language people subconsciously respond to in supermarkets,” she says. “It’s manipulative by design. My work hijacks that familiarity and redirects it toward uncomfortable truths.” Through weaponized design and overwhelming visuals, Dickins transforms the supermarket into a satirical battleground — a place where irony replaces brand loyalty, and awareness replaces mindless consumption.
Humor, Theatre, and Participatory Satire
Beyond its graphic punch, Capitalism To GOGO comes alive through performance. Central to this installation is actor and activist Matty May, who performs as an irreverent cashier character — part stand-up, part social commentator. Matty embodies a sarcastic, unapologetic retail worker who directly engages with guests, often mocking the absurdity of the consumer culture they’re being asked to inhabit.
This live interaction creates unexpected, unscripted theatre. Festival-goers are asked nonsensical questions about loyalty cards or confronted about imaginary store policies, only to have the conversation flip into critiques about wealth inequality, the gig economy, and labor exploitation. In this way, the performance becomes a living critique of transactional society, encouraging people to think critically about their own roles as consumers.
The blend of humor and criticism allows participants to reflect without feeling attacked. The cashier’s exaggerated tone and comedic timing disarm defensiveness. “People come in thinking it’s just a funny skit,” says Dickins, “but they leave having questioned things they didn’t expect to. That’s where the real power lies.”
The performative aspect of the installation makes it participatory, not passive. Rather than observing from a distance, visitors become characters in the satire. They’re given fake loyalty cards, pushed into absurd promotions, or treated like VIPs based on imaginary metrics. It’s all designed to mimic — and mock — the performative loyalty that corporations demand from their customers.
Unveiling Economic Injustice Through Parody
At the heart of Capitalism To GOGO is a deeper message about inequality. The installation draws attention to how consumerism is sold to the masses as empowerment, while in reality it often masks economic disenfranchisement. This isn’t just a parody of retail — it’s a direct confrontation with the systems that keep many trapped in cycles of overwork, underpay, and financial instability.
One wall of the installation, dubbed the “Reduced to Clear” aisle, is particularly pointed. It features fake products with labels that parody real-life struggles: “Low-Wage Noodles,” “Debt-Flavored Cola,” and “Rent Crisis Beans.” Visitors laugh, but the discomfort lingers. These products feel too close to real life for the joke to land entirely as fiction.
Dickins notes that the work is autobiographical in many ways. As a queer female artist navigating gig-based creative industries, her own experience of economic precarity informs the piece. “There’s a performative optimism in retail,” she says. “It’s the same smile on the face of someone paid too little to work too long. I’m holding that mirror up.”
This authenticity gives the work depth beyond satire. It allows Capitalism To GOGO to function as both a personal exorcism and a collective mirror — reflecting not just the ridiculousness of capitalist promises, but the very real consequences they impose on human lives.
Artistic Resistance Within a Consumer Framework
The existence of a work like Capitalism To GOGO at a large-scale, ticketed festival like Glastonbury raises inevitable questions. Is it possible to critique consumerism while participating in a branded cultural event? Can anti-capitalist messages thrive within systems that are, by nature, capitalist?
Dickins doesn’t shy away from this contradiction. In fact, she embraces it as part of the work’s tension. “There’s no such thing as pure rebellion anymore,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean the work is meaningless. If anything, the contradictions make it more urgent.” Her approach involves using the infrastructure of the festival — the space, the audience, the attention — as a platform for reflection and critique.
By infiltrating the system with its own language and icons, Dickins exposes the very mechanics that most advertising campaigns try to conceal. What’s normally a space of passive consumption becomes one of active questioning. Visitors don’t just view Capitalism To GOGO — they inhabit it, confront it, and eventually leave with new perspectives.
The installation also raises important questions about visibility and platform. Without spaces like Shangri-La — and without festivals willing to host politically charged works — artists like Dickins might remain on the fringes. The opportunity to engage thousands of people with ideas that rarely make it into mainstream discourse is, for her, worth navigating the complexity.
Her work serves as a vivid reminder that anti-capitalist art doesn’t have to exist outside of capitalism to be effective. Sometimes, the most subversive work happens when artists embed themselves in the very environments they seek to transform. By parodying the mechanisms of consumption from within, they shift the narrative from the inside out.
Cute but Cutting: The Subtle Power of Satirical Posters
While large-scale immersive installations tend to dominate the visual landscape at Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, it’s often the quieter, more intimate pieces that leave a lasting impression. Artist Benjamin Irritant takes this understated route to subversive storytelling. His contribution to the anti-capitalist discourse of the festival is far from grandiose — yet it might be among the most disarming and quietly provocative of them all. His medium? Handmade flyposters scattered like breadcrumbs across the festival site, placed with calculated randomness.
With scissors, glue, and an archive of salvaged newspapers and forgotten magazines, Benjamin assembles each piece using traditional analog methods. These DIY posters are the artistic equivalent of street whispers — unobtrusive at first glance, but sharp and unforgettable once engaged with. The aesthetic is deliberately raw, unapologetically cut-and-paste, and dripping with irony.
What defines Benjamin’s style is a tension between aesthetic innocence and political depth. His posters are peppered with playful imagery — most famously, bunnies. These soft, universally beloved creatures hop across the compositions alongside slogans that critique everything from corporate greed to state surveillance and media manipulation. The combination of cute visuals and radical messaging creates a jarring, yet strangely comforting, juxtaposition that demands a double take.
Symbolic Disruption Through Whimsy
Benjamin’s signature use of bunnies is not just quirky branding — it’s strategic. “People see a bunny and they smile,” he explains. “That moment of warmth is a portal. It drops their guard. Then the message creeps in.”
This layered communication transforms the posters into what he describes as “visual Trojan horses.” They blend into the festival landscape, almost mistaken for whimsical décor or nostalgic kitsch, before revealing their deeper critique. Viewers are seduced into pausing — and in that pause, reflection takes root.
The soft animals symbolize vulnerability, but also resilience. Their presence next to biting text invites viewers into a psychological double exposure — one that bridges comfort and confrontation. These posters don’t shout over the music or stage a dramatic takeover. Instead, they linger in the periphery, catching people off-guard between stages, in toilet queues, on the side of tents, or next to food stalls.
This unexpected encounter is what makes them so effective. In a cultural space as saturated as Glastonbury, visual resistance must often sneak in through the side door. Benjamin’s posters excel at that, acting like glitches in the aesthetic algorithm of festival culture. They appear harmless — then suddenly, they’re not.
Analog Tactics in a Digital World
In an era dominated by hyper-digital campaigns, where political messaging is streamlined through algorithms and targeted ads, Benjamin’s choice to work entirely by hand feels refreshingly rebellious. His practice resists the pressure to conform to high-res, branded activism. There’s no click-through CTA. No hashtag. No digital watermark. Just collage, glue, and a message.
This analog approach gives his posters an organic authenticity that digital mediums can’t replicate. Each one is slightly different — a fingerprint of a moment, a statement born from materials with histories of their own. This tangible imperfection stands in sharp contrast to the polished sheen of corporate design. It’s anti-marketing by nature.
The process itself becomes part of the resistance. Cutting text from tabloids, recontextualizing headlines, and pairing imagery with irony is both a political and poetic act. It undermines mass-produced media and reclaims space through reinterpretation. In a sense, each poster is an artifact of detournement — the Situationist practice of turning mainstream symbols against themselves.
Moreover, Benjamin’s manual technique echoes the rich tradition of underground publishing, punk zines, and activist pamphlets. His art stands on the shoulders of dissenters who’ve long used paper, glue, and wit to agitate and educate — from anti-war leaflets to queer liberation posters pasted onto lampposts in the dead of night.
Visual Resistance Within a Festival Ecosystem
Shangri-La offers a uniquely fertile environment for Benjamin’s approach. While the festival is known for its scale and commercial pull, it also holds space for autonomous zones where radical ideas can breathe. Shangri-La, in particular, functions like a temporary city governed by its own set of rules — ones that allow artists like Benjamin to operate with autonomy and unpredictability.
In this realm, the flyposter becomes a roaming symbol of cultural resistance. Unlike traditional artworks confined to galleries or stages, these pieces appear unannounced and unclaimed. There’s no label telling you what to think, no accompanying plaque with the artist’s bio. Instead, meaning emerges from chance encounters — from wandering, noticing, and thinking.
This type of distribution challenges the commodification of art. There’s no “limited print run” or monetization strategy. No scarcity marketing or pay-to-see model. The work is accessible to everyone, precisely because it exists outside of transactional systems. It’s art without a gatekeeper — raw, generous, and fleeting.
Benjamin’s work also leverages the temporal nature of festivals. At 3 a.m., as revelers drift between late-night sets, the sudden appearance of a bunny-covered poster that says “Obey Less, Wonder More” or “Capitalism Isn’t Cuddly” hits differently. The liminality of the night, mixed with exhaustion and elation, makes people more receptive to unfiltered truth. These moments become pockets of clarity amid the chaos.
The Gentle Disruption That Stays With You
What sets Benjamin’s satirical flyposters apart is not just their wit or charm, but their durability — not in terms of materials, but in terms of memory. Long after the festival dust has settled, people remember the bunny that made them think. They talk about the poster that made them laugh, then frown, then pause. These micro-moments stick because they are deeply human.
In a space dominated by sensory overload, Benjamin offers quiet confrontation. He doesn’t need immersive tech, flashy lights, or performative installations to command attention. Instead, he draws power from simplicity, from slowness, from surprise. His work is the artistic equivalent of a whisper in a room full of noise — and sometimes, that whisper carries the loudest truth.
Ultimately, Benjamin Irritant’s flyposters prove that anti-capitalist art doesn’t always have to be aggressive or abrasive. Sometimes, it can be gentle, funny, and endearing — and still land its punch. Through whimsy and satire, his posters bypass the defensive walls people often build around political messaging. They offer an opening. An invitation. A provocation dressed as a pet.
And in a world increasingly colonized by branded messages, algorithmic persuasion, and visual fatigue, that kind of artistic honesty is nothing short of radical.
Rest as Radical: A Space for Slowing Down
In the chaotic, thumping heartbeat of Glastonbury Festival, where sensory overload is part of the appeal, it may seem counterintuitive to create a space dedicated to silence, stillness, and serenity. But that’s precisely what artist and experience designer Rachael Taylor has done with Freedom to Rest, an installation that challenges dominant cultural narratives not by raising a fist, but by inviting people to lie down.
While rebellion is often defined by confrontation and noise, Rachael reclaims it through softness. Her immersive sanctuary, nestled within the revolutionary sprawl of Shangri-La, offers an unexpected but urgently needed reprieve from the physical and mental demands not just of the festival — but of modern life. It’s an anti-capitalist art space disguised as a restful haven, where slowing down becomes a conscious act of resistance.
Inspired by the rest-as-resistance philosophy pioneered by Tricia Hersey, Taylor’s project is rooted in the belief that productivity culture is not only unsustainable but oppressive. In Freedom to Rest, the simple invitation to pause becomes deeply political. In a world that equates worth with output, resting — truly resting — becomes a powerful refusal.
Redesigning Rebellion Through Radical Rest
The very design of the space tells a story. Stepping into the installation is like crossing a boundary between dimensions. The ambient noise of the outside world fades into a gentle hush, replaced by subtle soundscapes designed to soothe and recalibrate. Everything about the space is intentional — the materials, lighting, and layout are curated to nurture inner stillness and contemplation.
Unlike traditional art installations that command attention through spectacle, Freedom to Rest subverts the notion that art must be performative or loud to be powerful. Instead, its strength lies in its restraint. It invites you not to engage in activity, but to engage in non-doing — a deeply undervalued form of engagement in a hyperactive society.
Books, natural textures, and thoughtfully placed mats and cushions allow for moments of solitude or shared stillness. There is no pressure to speak, move, or perform. Instead, the invitation is to reclaim a sense of personal agency through slowness. In this way, rest is reframed not as laziness, but as liberation.
The aesthetic choices reflect a desire to reconnect with the organic. Earth-toned fabrics, woven elements, and botanical accents offer sensory grounding. The space feels more like a dream lodge than an art piece, yet it carries a message as fierce as any megaphone — that human beings are not machines, and to deny ourselves rest is to deny our humanity.
Dream Weavers and Seed Messages of Care
One of the most affecting aspects of Freedom to Rest is its interpersonal dimension. Volunteers known as “dream weavers” gently move through the space, offering handwritten affirmations printed on biodegradable seed paper. These notes are small — just enough for a quote, a message of love, or a poetic prompt — but their impact is outsized.
Each message is gifted with care and intention, not as merchandise or memorabilia, but as a moment of shared presence. The seed paper format reflects the project’s layered symbolism: these are thoughts meant to be planted, grown, and tended — both literally and metaphorically. It’s a gentle form of eco-activism interwoven with emotional intelligence.
The exchange between dream weaver and visitor feels sacred, like an old ritual quietly reawakened. It’s not transactional. It’s not performative. It’s intimate. And in a space like Glastonbury, buzzing with energy, that kind of intentional human interaction becomes a rare and radical thing.
These gestures of care stand in opposition to the commodification of wellness that has become increasingly prevalent in mainstream culture. There’s no brand partnership or influencer tie-in. There’s no curated Instagram moment. Instead, the focus is on inward transformation and relational healing. By decentering spectacle and reframing attention, Taylor’s installation cultivates a collective pause that feels revolutionary.
Challenging Capitalism Through Stillness
The foundation of Freedom to Rest is a rejection of the capitalist myth that time must always be maximized, that energy must always be directed toward production, and that stillness is a sign of weakness. The installation reimagines rest as a radical departure from these norms — a soulful protest against the chronic fatigue of modern life.
Taylor’s own creative practice emerged from the pressures of the fashion industry, where burnout and perfectionism often dominate. Having experienced firsthand the cost of overextension, she now channels her work into creating multidisciplinary projects that offer new ways to experience time, community, and care.
In her view, rest is not only personal but collective. “When we allow ourselves to pause,” she says, “we create space for others to do the same. It’s a ripple effect. One that counteracts urgency, anxiety, and depletion.” In this way, the installation is both an individual and communal practice — a sanctuary that enables people to reclaim their time and energy as forms of personal sovereignty.
The installation also prompts deeper questions. What would a world look like if it prioritized care over competition? What might our cities, workplaces, or social systems resemble if rest was embedded into their rhythms? Taylor’s work doesn’t provide definitive answers — nor does it try to. Instead, it cultivates a sense of openness. A space where such questions can finally be considered without distraction.
Planting Slow Seeds in Fast Culture
More than just a festival installation, Freedom to Rest is a philosophical intervention. It meets people where they are — often overstimulated, overtired, and overwhelmed — and offers them a doorway into something slower, softer, and more sustainable. It doesn’t preach or politicize overtly, yet everything about it is inherently political.
By embedding this sanctuary within Glastonbury’s dynamic landscape, Taylor makes a bold statement: that rest is not retreat, but resistance. That in order to care for the world, we must first learn how to care for ourselves. And that meaningful change can begin in silence, in slowness, and in shared human presence.
As festival-goers leave Shangri-La and reenter their daily lives, many carry with them a piece of the stillness they encountered. Whether in the form of a seed paper message tucked into a journal, a memory of a quiet moment on a floor cushion, or a newfound awareness of their own need for rest — the experience lingers.
In an age defined by burnout, noise, and infinite scroll, Taylor’s installation reminds us that slowing down is not failure. It is not weakness. It is wisdom. It is rebellion. And perhaps most importantly, it is necessary.
Turning Tech Against Itself: Inside the ‘Data Dealers’ Project
Amid the creative chaos and radical experiments of Glastonbury Festival’s Shangri-La zone lies one of its most quietly subversive exhibits — Data Dealers, a multi-layered digital art installation that unpacks the often-opaque world of data capitalism. Created by creative technologists Dave Webb and Coral Manton, this project is less about aesthetic spectacle and more about provoking awareness and insight into the mechanisms of our digital lives.
While the world of tech typically exudes a sleek, seductive veneer, Data Dealers invites festival-goers to look behind the interface. It simulates the tactics used by major tech corporations — from behavioral tracking to personalized profiling — but recontextualizes them in a performative, festival-friendly environment that blends satire with education. Unlike the immersive installations powered by immersive sound or psychedelic light, Data Dealers provokes in a different way: through unsettling recognition.
As participants engage with what at first appears to be a tech storefront, they quickly realize they’re not being sold a product — they’re being sold an idea. One that questions the unchecked reach of algorithmic surveillance, the loss of data autonomy, and the very notion of consent in digital ecosystems.
Exposing the Invisible: What Lurks Behind the Screen
The brilliance of Data Dealers lies in how it uses familiar tropes — touchscreen kiosks, customer service aesthetics, curated UX — to lure participants into its world. At face value, it mimics a futuristic technology shop, complete with branding, interfaces, and fake promotions. However, the deeper one explores, the more unsettling the experience becomes.
Visitors encounter devices that simulate how everyday actions — swiping, searching, clicking — are harvested for data. Faux dashboards display exaggerated profiles built from innocuous behavior, revealing how fragmented bits of personal information can be reconstructed into a disturbingly detailed mosaic. Through stylized interfaces and fabricated apps, Webb and Manton exaggerate real practices in a way that makes the abstract feel tangible.
By placing people in the user role and then exposing the consequences of those interactions, the piece turns passive users into critical thinkers. Rather than preaching or scolding, it provokes curiosity and discomfort. It's an artistic sleight-of-hand: you think you’re playing with tech, but the tech is really playing with you.
This hyperrealist simulation demystifies data collection in a way that most educational tools fail to achieve. It breaks down complex concepts like predictive modeling, algorithmic bias, and metadata aggregation into digestible, interactive moments. It's a unique form of tech art that doesn’t just comment on systems — it replicates them, then deconstructs them.
Creating Counter-Infrastructure in a Disconnected Environment
One of the most striking elements of Data Dealers is how it operates entirely off-grid. Glastonbury Festival, particularly the Shangri-La zone, isn’t exactly known for reliable internet connectivity. Rather than let this become a limitation, Webb and Manton embraced it as a metaphorical and logistical challenge.
To power the installation, they constructed a private local area network (LAN), completely disconnected from the cloud. Four high-performance computers run open-source software to simulate real-time data flow and interaction. It's a feat of technical inventiveness and a quiet act of rebellion — proving that impactful, intelligent tech-based work doesn’t require corporate infrastructure.
“By working locally, we’re revealing how much power we’ve ceded to remote systems,” Webb explains. “The cloud is treated like some magical force, but it’s just someone else’s computer, governed by someone else’s agenda.” Their homegrown network becomes an act of self-determination — a microcosm of what decentralized, community-owned technology could look like.
Coral Manton elaborates that the constraints of the festival environment made the project more urgent. “There's beauty in the limitations. It forces us to be creative. We’re showing that you can simulate a surveillance economy with nothing more than imagination and a few open-source tools — and that’s powerful.”
This local-only system not only aligns with anti-capitalist principles of autonomy and transparency but also becomes a symbolic reversal of digital dependency. It challenges the idea that surveillance capitalism is inevitable or inescapable. Instead, it offers a playful yet profound demonstration of alternative digital futures.
Satire, Awareness, and the Politics of Play
What sets Data Dealers apart from other installations tackling serious subjects is its tonal balance. Despite engaging with unsettling themes — digital exploitation, the illusion of online privacy, and behavioral commodification — the piece remains approachable, even humorous. It’s satire with a sharp edge, inviting participation rather than alienation.
The exhibit makes you laugh, then it makes you think. Signage promotes absurd features like “Friendship Metrics™” or “Emotion-Based Credit Scores,” and interactive prompts offer tongue-in-cheek opt-ins that mimic real consent forms — only with a touch of dark absurdity. This dual tone allows the project to communicate nuanced critique in a language that is both festival-appropriate and deeply thought-provoking.
The power of play becomes central. By framing these tech critiques in a format that feels game-like, the project taps into the innate curiosity of festival-goers. People don’t need to be experts in machine learning or data ethics to understand what’s happening — they feel it viscerally as their actions are mirrored, interpreted, and fed back to them through a distorted digital lens.
This subtle pedagogical approach is precisely why Data Dealers is so effective. It doesn’t present itself as a lecture or exhibit. Instead, it becomes a lived experience — a tangible encounter with an invisible system. That shift from abstract to experiential is where transformation begins.
Rethinking Agency in the Age of Surveillance
Beyond satire and simulation, Data Dealers delivers a core philosophical question to its visitors: what does it mean to have agency in a world designed to mine your attention, behavior, and choices? Webb and Manton make it clear that their installation is not just about exposing problems — it’s about reclaiming autonomy.
The interactive format doesn’t just simulate digital profiling; it also encourages festival-goers to critically reflect on their digital routines. Participants leave not only amused or disturbed, but newly attuned to their interactions with technology. They may think twice before accepting a privacy policy or question the neutrality of the platforms they trust.
While the installation exists for only a few days, its echoes travel far beyond the borders of Glastonbury. It challenges the very assumptions underpinning our relationship with technology — the idea that convenience must come with compromise, that innovation must mean surveillance, that personalization must require profiling.
In an age where digital behavior is invisibly monitored, monetized, and manipulated, Data Dealers offers a counter-narrative: one where awareness becomes armor, and creativity becomes resistance. It’s not a utopian vision, but a roadmap. One built not on denial, but on possibility — showing that it’s not too late to change the way we engage with our digital world.
Walking the Tightrope: Integrity Versus Infrastructure
Creating anti-capitalist work inside a globally renowned and ticketed event like Glastonbury is undeniably paradoxical. Artists at Shangri-La are fully aware of the contradiction. They critique the system while relying on it — at least partially — to share their message.
Hannah Dickins has declined commercial opportunities that didn’t align with her ethics. “I’m not interested in selling my voice to someone who’ll dilute the message,” she states. For her, participating in Shangri-La is about purpose, not profit.
The festival doesn’t offer artists a wage, though their ticket — notoriously hard to obtain — is covered. Yet most creatives here agree: the value is in the visibility, the atmosphere of collaboration, and the chance to provoke thousands of conversations in a single weekend.
“It’s not just about putting something out into the world,” says Coral. “It’s about being part of a living dialogue. That’s the real currency.”
Guiding Principles for Emerging Anti-Capitalist Artists
For those looking to fuse art and activism, the experiences of Shangri-La’s contributors offer a blueprint. Their insights reflect both personal conviction and tactical awareness.
Adopt and invert corporate language: Use the techniques of branding, slogans, and commercial design to draw attention — then redirect it.
Work with what you have: Embrace resourcefulness. Open-source tools, recycled materials, and analog methods often carry more meaning than polished perfection.
Inject humor and surrealism: A spoonful of satire makes the critique digestible. Laughter can be a powerful entry point to deeper ideas.
Prioritize human connection: Intimate, face-to-face exchanges create moments of impact that digital work often can’t replicate.
Refuse to compromise values: Artistic integrity is a compass. When opportunities clash with your beliefs, let your conscience lead.
Form collectives: There’s strength in collaboration. Find or create communities that share your vision and offer support.
Build immersive, physical spaces: In a hyper-digital society, tangible art installations provide grounding and resonance.
Subvert from within: Engaging with mainstream platforms doesn’t mean selling out. It can be a Trojan horse for critical thought.
Keep pushing boundaries: Festivals provide a rare opportunity to be experimental. Use the space to test new forms, formats, and ideas.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
In an age of algorithmic content, economic precarity, and escalating ecological crises, the role of artists as cultural critics and imaginative visionaries has never been more urgent. Shangri-La doesn’t just display art — it creates environments for radical thought, emotional truth-telling, and unexpected awakenings.
By hijacking the familiar and reshaping it into something thoughtful, strange, and often hilarious, these artists make audiences see the world differently. They remind us that another way of being — slower, kinder, more imaginative — is possible, even if only temporarily.
And perhaps that’s the point. The temporary nature of Glastonbury itself becomes a metaphor. Like a dream built on borrowed fields and collapsing stages, the festival — and Shangri-La in particular — asks what we might build, if we let go of what we've been told to want.
When the music fades and the fields return to stillness, what lingers is the art. Not because it provided answers, but because it dared to ask better questions.
Final Reflections
At first glance, the notion of creating anti-capitalist art within one of the world’s most famous and commercially successful festivals might seem like an ironic contradiction. Yet it’s exactly this paradox that makes Shangri-La so vital. This eclectic corner of Glastonbury is more than a curated zone for art and performance — it is a living, breathing laboratory for cultural resistance. It’s a space where artists are encouraged to critique the very structures that frame modern life, using the tools of that system to pull apart its illusions.
As global economies grow increasingly imbalanced, and as tech platforms monetize human attention with alarming efficiency, spaces like Shangri-La remind us of the importance of creative autonomy. In a world saturated with content and commodified identity, authentic artistic disruption is both rare and essential. Artists in Shangri-La aren’t merely participating in the festival — they are reclaiming public imagination. They are posing radical questions, offering alternatives, and encouraging viewers to stop, reflect, and, most importantly, to feel.
What makes this enclave unique isn’t just its visual flair or thought-provoking messages. It’s the deliberate blurring of lines between audience and creator, between play and politics, between rest and resistance. Whether it’s a dystopian supermarket, a quiet zone for reflection, or a simulated tech dystopia, each installation is an invitation — a moment of rupture that prompts people to examine the invisible systems around them.
In a society that glorifies speed, production, and constant engagement, the subversive power of slowing down, looking closer, and questioning the norm cannot be overstated. Shangri-La dares to suggest that different ways of living, thinking, and creating are not only possible — they’re urgently needed.
And perhaps that’s the real legacy of these artists: not just the messages they broadcast, but the moments of pause they create. In a world built on relentless consumption, offering space to wonder, to rest, and to imagine is its own quiet revolution.
Shangri-La may only exist for a few days each year, but the ideas it plants — about justice, joy, community, and resistance — have the potential to grow far beyond the fields of Somerset.
