University of Kent hosts 10th annual Boing Festival

Taking place every August bank holiday, the family-focused celebration welcomes artists, musicians and performers from across Europe.

Transcript

00:00Bouncing back to Canterbury for its 10th year, the Boing Festival transforms the University

00:10of Kent campus into a venue for artists and performers.

00:15This bank holiday weekend, they've come from right across the UK.

00:19Did you know that the Boing Festival, by its name, because the Canterbury campus of the

00:25University of Kent, is famous for its large amount of rabbits?

00:29It feels great. I mean, obviously, I've actually only been here before, so I inherited Boing.

00:35But it's wonderful. I mean, you see for yourself what the campus looks like. It's the biggest

00:39event in the campus' calendar now, and it obviously happens when the campus is closed,

00:44fortunately. But it is generally 12,000 people over the weekend, families in Kent and beyond,

00:51I think. Love it. It's a genuine success story of our programme.

00:56One of the themes of Boing this year is getting people to think about what it means to live

01:01well as you get older. The Arts and Crafts workshop doubles as a research project.

01:06This is just a start for the conversation, so families come to our table, they do this,

01:14but then we also ask them how comfortable they are to be speaking about old age, ill

01:23health, the need for care from someone else, and also end of life, because we are all humans

01:32and it will happen at some point.

01:35I think they've probably learnt that anyone can be an artist. They can come in and get

01:44involved in something which is fairly accessible, depending on their age or their abilities,

01:51which is really lovely. There's no wrong or right. Nobody's saying, no, that's the wrong

01:56way to do it, or that's the right way to do it. So it's very just the freedom of using

02:01their own imagination, which is really important.

02:05The project will then go on display in the campus' Gombenkian in March next year.

02:11Henry Luck for KMTV in Canterbury.