University and Port Eliot Festival work to enhance creative experiences

Plymouth University is enhancing its links with one of the South West’s most iconic summer events, the Port Eliot Festival.

For the second time, the University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities is to be the official Creative and Cultural Partner of the festival, taking place at the home of Lord and Lady St Germans in South East Cornwall from July 28 to 31, 2016.

And this year, an increased range of opportunities are being coordinated for both students and the wider community, both on the festival site and the University campus.

These will include the opportunity for spatial design students to work with internationally celebrated artist and production designer Michael Howells to create the festival’s iconic Bridge over the Haha.

Students will also be working again with the team behind Hole&Corner magazine and local businesses to promote knowledge exchange through words, music, comedy and a series of workshops.

And there will be a range of associated activities in the centre of Plymouth, including the creation of a festival shed to generate interest and new ideas in the run-up to the four-day event.

Professor Dafydd Moore, Executive Dean of Arts and Humanities at Plymouth University, said: “We are delighted to once again be working with the Port Eliot Festival, uniting the creative individuality of two great South West institutions. The success of 2015 showed this is a mutually beneficial collaboration, and it created a number of outstanding experiences for our students. I am confident that in 2016, we will forge new connections with leading cultural innovators, creating a special atmosphere for those at the festival and generating new opportunities across the creative and cultural sector.”

Justin Bovington, Creative Industries Strategist at Affinity with Plymouth University, added: “Our continued involvement and commitment to champion and showcase the Creative Industries within our region is even bigger this year, and we will be hosting, with our partners Hole&Corner, over 20 Creative Industries practitioners. Our emerging talent teams will continue to have access to unprecedented levels of thought leadership, increasing their employability.”

Port Eliot is the South West’s foremost annual festival of surprises, a free-ranging event which places equal importance on music, words, food, fashion, flowers, walking and water. The 2016 festival will see Noel Fielding and Russell Norman rubbing shoulders with Helen Dunmore, Andrew Weatherall and Ryley Walker on a bill for which ‘more than somewhat eclectic’ would seem to be the most appropriate description.

Since its launch over a decade ago, it has attracted an incredible range of performers, including the likes of Dominic West, Kate Winslet, Tracy Chevalier, Jarvis Cocker, Sarah Waters, Cate Le Bon, Jessica Hynes, Suggs,Gruff Rhys and Hanif Kureishi.

Each year, at the end of July, Port Eliot Festival fills a beautiful ancient estate on Cornwall’s Rame Peninsula with a collection of some of the most invigorating performers, thinkers, artists, writers and idlers assembled in one place at the same time.

Catherine St Germans, Port Eliot Festival founder, added: “It’s a pleasure to be teaming up with Plymouth University for a second year. Last year’s partnership brought students right to the centre of our event and while this brought about some brilliant experiences for them, they also added a new quality to the festival. We’re all looking forward to doing even more this year.”