Students celebrate all forms of art in 24th Turl Street Arts Festival
Students take part in a Poetry and Painting evening at Lincoln College
This year the Turl Street Arts Festival returned for its 24th run. Every year, students from Exeter, Lincoln and Jesus colleges come together to produce 10 days of workshops, performances and events to celebrate art in all its forms.
The Opening Ceremony Concert in Exeter chapel on Friday 14 February set a standard for the energy of the week. Turl Street ensembles played and sung, performing music from around the world. The days that followed were host to music, visual art, drama, and literature events every day. Tuesday’s line-up included a panel discussion, Can Art Curate Society, in which Jeremy Stafford, Director of Arts at the Old Fire Station, discussed the role of art as an ‘inclusive creative process’. Another highlight was the Beat Boxing Workshop. Abi Owen, a student at Jesus College, describes the event: ‘people really threw themselves out there in the beatboxing workshop and pushed themselves to make new sounds. Watching people make the most ridiculous noises they could conjure in time to a beat was fantastic, and the sound they produced was amazing.’
The festival also aims to find the cross-over points between different disciplines. The Poetry and Painting evening at Lincoln was an opportunity for people to get together in a casual way and create art. The launch party for the Turl Street arts magazine, ‘The Turl’, in Jesus bar was another celebration of the arts in their totality. Students gathered to hear poetry readings from the magazine, as well as live music performances in the open mic night that followed.
The festival culminated with the Jazz Ball. The night was a huge success, and when asked what his favourite part of the festival was, Jesus College student Nick Wong remarked, ‘I know it’s trite, but of course the Jazz Ball!’ Sunday 23 February brought the festival to a close with a street fair and clothes swap, which had been delayed on account of storm Dennis. Free henna, freestyle dance and acapella dominated Brasenose lane, bringing the Festival to an uplifting close.
