Ephemeral Arts

Arts which are temporary or short lived, based on a specific occasion or event and transitory in nature.

The Festival presents opportunities

To revive and recognise some of the dormant arts of the South Asian community

To access, understand and appreciate the ephemeral arts of other communities

To work on cross-cultural arts with time based cultures

One of the most challenging aspects of the ephemeral arts is that they are not always recognised in the same way as performing arts, especially by the culturally diverse communities in Britain today. With the exception of Caribbean carnivals, the ephemeral arts have not been exploited as a tool for community empowerment and involvement.

This Festival aims to involve Asian and cross-cultural community groups in exhibiting some of the dormant and declining arts, documenting their significance and identifying local practitioners. We have seen that many of the best exponents of the South Asian ephemeral arts are older people, especially women who have the skills for demonstrating the ephemeral arts but have not been able to relate to the arts funding mechanism or create a market for their work.

Bringing the ephemeral arts into the public domain

Contacts with South Asian communities and many other communities represented in Britain have also shown that some of the ephemeral arts selected for the Festival do feature in closed community gatherings or are practised in private family occasions . These arts are also not perceived to have any economic value and most practitioners have not considered the possibility of working as 'serious' artists in return for fees. As a result some of the skills are being lost and in many cases artistic expression is confined to community gatherings.