The Glastonbury Festival is the largest performing arts festival in the world, situated in the mythic Vale of Avalon, England. Now in its thirty-ninth year, up to two hundred thousand festivalgoers from all over the world will attend the festival over a four-day period.
Venetia Dearden has been documenting the people of the Glastonbury Festival since 2004. With the help of a professional portable photographic studio, her aim was to single out individuals and groups to capture the motives and personas that make up the fabric of Glastonbury. The result is an intimate and unique set of portraits that includes festivalgoers, stall holders, charity workers, organizers, and many of the celebrity performers. The huge volume of portraits generated over four years brilliantly captures fleeting moments of serenity amidst the surreal, swirling insanity that is Glastonbury.
The selection of performing artists in the book includes: Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Paolo Nutini, James Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Jay-Z, Shakin' Stevens, Jimmy Cliff, Joan Armatrading, Duffy, Richard Ashcroft, Paul Weller, The Who, Manic Street Preachers, Goldfrapp, Martha Wainwright, and many more.
Venetia Dearden, born 1975 in Somerset, England, has studied anthropology at Edinburgh University and photojournalism at the London College of Printing. She has documented social and humanitarian issues, producing features and facilitating workshops as a consultant for Photovoice. Her work is published worldwide in such publications as Vogue, Wallpaper, The Sunday Times Magazine, W Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, and Stern, among many others. In 2008, she published her first book, Somerset Stories Fivepenny Dreams (Kehrer Verlag), portraying the region where she grew up.
