For the third year running, QAN will be holding a Quaker space at Greenbelt Festival. We invite ideas from QAN artists for a simple, participatory artwork to be made collectively by visitors over the three days of the festival.
We will have a standard-size gazebo as our base. The idea is to offer an open, welcoming activity that festival-goers can join in with briefly or linger over, gradually contributing to a single shared artwork that grows and changes over the course of the weekend.
We are especially interested in ideas that are:
rooted in Quaker values, practice, testimony, or ways of seeing;
accessible to people of different ages, abilities, and levels of confidence;
visually engaging enough to draw people into the gazebo;
practical to manage in a festival setting, with limited space and simple materials;
capable of accumulating into one coherent artwork over three days;
open-ended enough to allow many different kinds of contribution.
The work might invite responses to a query, a word, a testimony, a material, a gesture, or a shared act of making. A modest materials budget will be available.
We would welcome both fully formed proposals and early-stage suggestions. It would be helpful if ideas could include:
a short description of the proposed artwork;
how visitors would participate;
what materials or preparation would be needed;
how the work would build over the three days;
any practical considerations, such as weather, supervision, safety, transport, or display.
At this stage we are gathering possibilities, so please do not feel that an idea needs to be polished. We are looking for something that feels generous, thoughtful, practicable, and recognisably Quaker — a small creative space of attention, encounter, and shared making within the larger festival.
Please send ideas, sketches, notes, or questions to qangazebo2026@gmail.com by 18 June 2026.
We look forward to receiving your ideas!
Quaker Arts Network Trustees
2024 was the 50th year of the Christian-based Greenbelt Festival held at Boughton House near Kettering, from August 23rd to 25th. We were very excited to be hosting a gazebo at Greenbelt for the first time, which was a welcoming space for exploring, creating, reflecting and finding out about Quaker spirituality and witness.
Our aims were to:
All in all the project went very well, with around 500 folk visiting the gazebo, joining in quiet activities such as board games, arts and crafts, poetry and conversations and 200 people attending Meeting for Worship in the Shelter. Several visitors shared how they first encountered Quakers at Greenbelt and have since become members.
It was good to have a mix of newer and seasoned Friends of different ages, including some who were involved in other parts of Greenbelt.
Our presence created a significant outreach opportunity with roughly 300 copies of Advices and Queries distributed. A two-hour looped slide show and catalogue, curated by Kirsten Lavers, submitted by Quaker artists of images by particular queries filled a large screen (provided by Jesus Lane Quaker Meeting) at one end of the gazebo.
An exhibition of Loving Earth Project panels was also very well received and participants in our two workshops were so enthusiastic that we held a third informal one, which was particularly enjoyed by a group of young teenagers.
In 2025 we were back to Greenbelt again, this time with a theme of racial justice for the International Day Marking the Abolition of Slavery. We displayed the Woolford and Woolford: No Relation exhibition, and acted as a hub for Quaker activities on site which included Michael Mears' performance of The Mistake, Poetry performances by James Pendle, and a series of art-based Quaker epilogues in collaboration with Iona Community and Francsiscans.
We were very happy to see that over 2000 people engaged with QAN related events during the course of the festival, and we look forward to returning in 2026.