Greenbelt 2026
The Quaker Arts Network (QAN) celebrated a third year at the Greenbelt Festival of art and activism by inviting 300 visitors to its gazebo to add their own personal mark to ‘Be Patterns’, a collective and collaborative visual art work designed by Kirsten Lavers, using ink pads and fingerprints.
The patterns theme was echoed by the ‘Silence Inside’, a tapestry created in HMP Long Lartin with a Quaker group of prisoners, and a textile Peace banner from Ashburton Meeting, which was used to publicise the silent vigil in London. Visitors were also invited to make a friendship bracelet; request a poem recited by James Pendle; and find out more about Quakers and Quaker creativity.
The gazebo was a hub for Friends at Greenbelt as well as a destination for the Quaker curious. It was a signpost to many Quaker activities across the site including evening epilogues in the Franciscans and the Wild Goose (Iona Community) tents (attended by around 150); Saturday’s Meeting for Worship (200); David Curtis (120), Bob Gilbert (100) and Hannah Brock-Womack (80), giving a grand total of 950 Quaker encounters over the festival weekend.
The vibrant atmosphere of lively spiritual, political, artistic and social enquiry make Greenbelt festival an obvious and natural place for Quakers to hold an active and regular presence, for outreach, for growing connections between Friends from across the country, and to share ideas and conversations with other like minded spirits and organisations.
Greenbelt 2025
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.
Greenbelt 2024
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:
• Celebrate and raise the profile of Quakers, our spirituality, witness and creative arts practices
• Provide information about Quakers and invite festival attenders to Quaker Meetings
• Support Quakers in Northamptonshire
• Encourage Friends to share their Quaker faith with others
• Explore the feasibility of a continuing association with Greenbelt
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.