written by Irina Nedelcu on August 2, 2010
The Big Tent took part at the edge of the village of Falkland in Fife, the 24th and 25th of July promoting sustainability, community engagement and participation. Transition’s Euri Vidal tells you all about his Big Tent experience.
After all my travels and living in various countries over many years, I can say with a degree of certainty that this has been the most people-spirited festival I have been to. I decied to attend as a volunteer for Bespoke Organic Events, which took part as the main catering venue of the festival at the instructions of Robin Naumann. A bunch of us spent the weekend cooking and serving the organic and mostly fair trade food served in the Big Tent Café. I have been working in catering for a while and I must say that this was a very different experience, the emphasis not on the tediousness of serving and cleaning up, but on chatting to people, learning about organic food and recycling (and not being wasteful!) also on feeling part of the larger event which reflected the spirit of the community at large. I was mostly in charge of washing up, but it did not feel like that at all as I got to spend most of my time outside enjoying the sun, listening to the music I could hear playing from the main stage. Not to mention talking to people passing by and getting to know my fellow volunteers. All of this topped-up with the big deal of time I spent eating the organic stews, bread, strawberries and brownies, apricot and date slices and carrot cakes that were being served at the venue.
In my free time I tried to attend as many music events as possible and I also went to watch the screening of two movies: The Yes Men and Food Inc. The first one was about two activists who pretend to respresent big corporations and by setting up fake websites they get invited to several conferences. Then they use the event to make false claims about the company they are supposedly working for, the first one being Union Carbide, the corporation responsible for the chemical disaster in the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984. The activists announce real time in BBC (which was broadcasted to three hundred million people) that for the fist time they will fully and fairly compensate the victims of the accident, while minutes later the Union Carbide shares plunge by four per cent. And so it goes. The second movie presented the cases of the food industry in the United States, especially the meat and genetically modified crops industries. A very telling image of how our diets are influenced by certain food policies that protect and promote these industries, in most cases agains the health of people and health of the planet. Hence I am already looking forward for the environment film festival “Cineco” that will take place in Edinburgh (and Glasgow) in September.
In the very little spare time I had during the weekend I walked around trying to have a look at all the venues that took part in the event, the placard paintings made by children that were all over the place, and even got to learn that by becoming a member of the Cooperative, after a year you can take part in the meetings and the decisions that are made at the corporate level, which was a very refreshing idea.
To wrap-up, I particularly enjoyed the last concert at the main stage, and the Scottish folk music made me think of the Big Tent in the words what Rosanne Cash expressed before singing “Good Intent”, as the festival took care of the past, the present, and the future.
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