This two-month festival explores seven different types of human love in installations, exhibitions, music, poetry, performances, talks and differently themed weekends.
Southbank Centre opens its first Festival of Love on Saturday 28 June (to Sunday 31 August) in a
wide-ranging programme of performances, poetry, music, differently-themed weekends, exhibitions
and installations across the site. Seven of the most powerful variations of love identified by the
Ancient Greeks, have been chosen to be the focus of the Festival. Southbank Centre today
announces that the next three summer festivals will also be devoted to the theme of Love.
Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of Southbank Centre, said: “This summer we celebrate love to mark
the historic change in legislation enabling everyone to marry their partner of choice. I’m thrilled with
the interest we’ve had from couples who will publicly declare their love at our Big Wedding
Weekend, the climax to the Festival. We’re looking for 100 more couples – young or old, straight or
gay – to join the celebrations in what is an alternative, fabulous and affordable way to get married.
We also wanted to commemorate Nelson Mandela, who along with other political activists including Martin Luther King Jr, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mahatma Gandhi declared that love was the most
fundamental way to bring about change. As an organisation that strongly believes the arts and
culture can enable change we’re dedicating our next three summer Festivals to the rich and
complex subject of Love.”
The Festival’s Opening Weekend (Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 June) will be an in-depth look at the
seven types of love with talks, debates, workshops, readings and performances. Highlights include
writer and founding faculty member of The School of Life, Roman Krznaric, talking about the
Different Varieties of Love; Dr Bettany Hughes and Professor Angie Hobbs discussing the nature
and power of erotic love; and a Flirtology workshop with social anthropologist Jean Smith.
Roman Krznaric, said: “There is a crisis in the art of loving. 50% of couples get divorced. One in
four people say they are lonely. The average couple spends more time watching TV together than
actually speaking to each other. The surprising news is that gazing into the past and looking at the
Ancient Greeks' different varieties of love can be a cure for our contemporary dilemmas. It's time to
challenge the myths around romance sold by Hollywood and draw on the best thinking in
philosophy, history, psychology and the visual arts to give us new tools to think about love.”
Dr Bettany Hughes, said: “I’m fascinated by the millennia-long history of the power of love from the
Bronze Age to the present day. We can learn a huge amount from the Ancient Greeks and in
particular, Socrates. For him, Love has a purpose. It is the life force, the desire to do, to be, to think.
It is the thing that makes us feel great about the world, and therefore makes us be great in it.”
The site has been transformed with love-themed exhibitions and installations including Sliding Gate,
a series of play slides by Sean Griffiths of Modern Architect (previously of architecture firm FAT),
which symbolise the ups and downs of family life and the strong bonds between families; Love
Flags by Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner using the seven colours of the rainbow, signifying the
peace and gay pride movements, which fly from the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall
roofs, and the Jubilee Gardens flagpole; the Tunnel of Love by disability arts organisation Heart n
Soul, a multi-media and sensory installation with vibrating floors, mirrors, love-songs soundtrack,
which pays homage to the cheeky, flirty Tunnels of Love of yesteryear; Siege Weapons Of Love by
Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich, giant bright pink inflatable cannons and a tank inviting visitors to
make love not war, which is part of their Friendly Frontier Peace Campaign; and Pragma Tree:
Growing Together, a playful installation by The Edible Bus Stop including a large tree, symbolising
Pragma, a love that is enduring, patient and strong, and seating.The Temple of Agape on Queen’s Walk by Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan, measuring eight
metres high, is made up of hundreds of brightly-coloured, hand-painted flag-like signs covered in
words about love. Tying into the Agape theme – the love of humanity – the temple will represent the
power of love to conquer hate and features a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.
Artist Lothar Götz has created Seven Colours for Seven Loves, an artwork that gives a colour to
each type of love, which will help guide visitors around the site and the introductory exhibition What
Love Is in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, curated by Southbank Centre with a design concept by
Hemingway Design. Lothar Götz is also creating an artwork for The Clore Ballroom called Happy
Together, an enormous floor painting incorporating the seven colours and representing ballroom
dances of years gone by. A new neon love sign by Chris Bracey welcomes visitors to Heartbreak
Hotel, in Festival Village, under the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which includes an exhibition created with
publishers DC Thomson of letters from Jackie magazine’s famous agony aunts Cathy and Claire
and Valentine issue covers from the 70s. Jessica Voorsanger’s I Think I Love You Lounge explores
the obsessional love of celebrity. Visitors will be able to dress up as pop stars through the decades
selected by Voorsanger including Elvis, Abba, Michael Jackson, the Spice Girls and Beyoncé. The
Museum of Broken Relationships, set up by artists and ex-lovers Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić
in 2006, is an award-winning collection of remnants from past relationships. The exhibition will
include items from the collections and new works gathered for the Festival, including a Slovenian’s
sleepover bag from a relationship that included 20 breakups over 17 years and a marriage contract
from the Philippines.
In addition to the Festival of Love Opening Weekend, the differently-themed weekends throughout
the summer include a focus on Storge (12-13 July), Pragma (2-3 August), Philia (9-10 August),
Philautia (16-17 August), Eros and Ludos (23-24 August) and the Big Wedding Weekend (30-31
August) inspired by Agape – the love of humanity. This final weekend will see couples get married
at Southbank Centre in mass ceremonies and celebrations in the Royal Festival Hall, which will be a
completely different and affordable take on the ‘big day’. Two of the Royal Festival Hall ceremonies
have already sold-out and 60 couples are signed up to marry or renew their vows. Hundreds more
couples will be able to ‘marry’ in an inflatable chapel. Other weekends include New Music Biennial
(4-6 July), Poetry International Festival (19-20 July), and Urban, Celebrating Street Culture (25-27
July).
Other Festival of Love programme and site highlights include:
Udderbelly (until 13 July) – the upside down purple cow is back for its sixth year with circus,
comedy and family shows, as well as a Love-themed Beach Bar and Love Shack.
London Wonderground (until 28 Sept) is back for its third summer of circus, cabaret and
sideshows including the return of the smash hit circus show LIMBO.
The return of critically-acclaimed Groove On Down The Road by Kate Prince and her
award-winning dance company ZooNation, based on The Wizard of Oz story, a classic tale
of the love of friends and family (5-26 August).
Poetry International Festival (17-21 July), the biennial festival co-founded by Ted Hughes
in 1967, has a special focus on poetry in film. Poets include Robert Hass, Carolyn Forché,
Don Paterson, August Kleinzahler, Durs Grünbein and Ana Blandiana. There will be
readings of heart-breaking love letters by poets in Do Write Immediately including Harriet
Walter and Guy Paul reading correspondence between Byron and Caroline Lamb, and
Jason Hughes reading one of Dylan Thomas’s last letters to his wife Caitlin (19 July). Letters
by Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Keats, Lewis Carroll, Gertrude Stein and Philip
Larkin will also be read during the event.
The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture at the Hayward Gallery (until
7 Sept) brings together works from 25 international artists including Paul McCarthy, Jeff
Koons, Rebecca Warren and Yinka Shonibare who have fashioned new ways of using the
human body, the most frequently revisited subject in art’s history, over the past 25 years,
and two Hayward Project Space shows, including video installations by artist, Frances Stark,
exploring how the internet has transformed interpersonal communication.
The London premiere of RSC’s The Rape of Lucrece, performed by Camille O’Sullivan,
Shakespeare’s politically-charged, sexually provocative and violent thriller.
Two shows about female sexuality and relationships in the 21st century: award-winning star
of La Clique, Ursula Martinez’ show My Stories, Your Emails (5-10 August), created with
material from the emails she received after her infamous striptease act was illicitly videoed
and posted online; and Bryony Kimmings’ Sex Idiot (12-16 August), a funny, unapologetic
account by Kimmings of her relationship history following her discovery that she had a
common sexual disease.
Screenings of David Lean’s classic love story Brief Encounter with live music by Resident
Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra – a new Southbank Centre commission –
which will headline a film series of love stories in the Royal Festival Hall including
Singalonga Grease, Casablanca, iconic Bollywood film Devdas and The Graduate.
New pop ups including SNOG frozen yoghurt, The Bloody Oyster and cocktail bar, The
Department of Good Cheer all serving a variety of love-themed treats.
The return of Jeppe Hein’s Appearing Rooms, the Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden, the
urban beach, and weekly markets including the Real Food Market or KERB, the street food
organisation, on the first weekend of every month (Fridays to Sundays, July to September)
Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of
London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an
extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the
Hayward Gallery as well as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Temple of Agape
The quote by Martin Luther King Jr on the Temple of Agape, from 1967, is: “And I say to you, I have
also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s
problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in
some circles today. And I’m not talking emotional bosh when I talk about love: I’m talking about a
strong, demanding love.”
The Big Wedding Weekend, 30 and 31 August
As a spectacular alternative to the traditional wedding ceremony, Southbank Centre’s mass
wedding weekend will be both a communal celebration and a political act, helping to reduce the
financial barrier to marriage. Up to 20 couples at a time will be able to get married in up to eight
ceremonies during the weekend on the iconic Royal Festival Hall stage, accompanied by music and
performances including the historic organ, in front of an auditorium packed with their wedding
guests. The package, which costs £1,000, includes the registrar, ceremony, photography,
entertainment throughout the day including an evening disco on The Clore Ballroom and other
events around the building. The wedding parties also have the option to join in a celebratory
communal feast on The Clore Ballroom (this costs an additional £1000 for the couple and up to 40
guests).
For more information and images about the Festival of Love please contact Katie Toms,
Press Manager, at Katie.toms@southbankcentre.co.uk / 020 7921 0926 or Patricia O’Connor,
Head of Press, at patricia.oconnor@southbankcentre.co.uk / 020 7921 0632.
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road - London