Long Division Festival is documenting its history, with written contributions from guest contributors such as Yard Act’s James Smith, The Lovely Eggs and John Robb.
Award-winning festival and music organisation Long Division has launched a crowdfunder to support ‘Long Division Festival: A Visual Compendium’ – the final project from the Wakefield live music institution.
Editor’s note: There are 23 days left to raise the £1,520 needed to reach the goal of £4,000. Come on, Festival-goers!
Focusing on images, objects and stories, the Visual Compendium will celebrate the power of DIY Culture using the Long Division archive, reflections from the people that were there and unseen items from the Wakefield Museum archive to capture the essence of LD.
Photos, posters, unseen designs, records, merchandise, works-in-progress, art, recordings, films, poetry, floorplans, graphs, scripts, testimonials and more from the Long Division digital and physical archive are being pulled together to tell the story of the Festival and their community work.
The book – a beautiful hardback – will be predominantly written by the man who was there throughout, the founder and Director Dean Freeman. Scattered throughout will be further recollections and reflections from guest contributors who were there, including James Smith (Yard Act, Post War Glamour Girls), John Robb (The Membranes, Louder Than War), Robin Ince (The Infinite Monkey Cage) Holly Ross (The Lovely Eggs) and Dom Gourlay (Journalist) and others from across Wakefield’s tight-knit DIY community.
Started in 2011 by the Rhubarb Bomb fanzine as a celebration of Wakefield’s DIY culture and grassroots creativity, Long Division became a vital, year-round arts organisation and beloved annual festival. From their groundbreaking #YoungTeam education programme, arts mentoring schemes and school music sessions to the innovative Wakefield City PA project, Long Division aimed to develop and celebrate the City’s unique cultural prowess as inspired by the people who live, work and create there.
After hosting their final sold-out Festival in June 2023, the Long Division board has now announced that October 2023 will see the organisation wrap up all of its activities, youth projects and non-festival shows.
The Long Division Festival: A Visual Compendium crowdfunding campaign is open now
Dean Freeman, Founder / Director, Long Division:
“One of the great things about DIY Culture is that it happens in the moment. It often has a high degree of spontaneity and doesn’t think long term. On Long Division coming to a close, I have so many items, objects, fragments of stories and about a million photographs, which are testament to the many brilliant things we did, but also the chaos at the heart of it. I want this book to try and bottle that energy and become a final document for what Long Division ended up achieving but also act as a statement that projects like ours; working class, grassroots etc and just as valuable as those by huge, funded organisations. Against my natural instincts, it will be positive and celebratory and I can’t wait to make it.”
Press Quotes
“Long Division Festival continues to epitomise Wakefield’s revitalised scene” – Gigwise
“Music Festival Long Division is energising teenagers into careers in the creative industries” – The Guardian
“Wakefield has established itself as an under-the-radar cultural hub and home to one of the best independent arts festivals in Europe” – Under The Radar
twitter.com/Long_Division_https://www.instagram.com/longdivisionfestival/
Main image Asian Dub Foundation by Jazz Jennings.
Unless otherwise credited, all other photography by Andrew Benge: https://leedsliving.co.uk/music-dance/long-division-its-great-to-be-back/
https://leedsliving.co.uk/music-dance/long-division-part-2/
