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Over two days in June, researchers and practitioners from different fields discussed current trends in global festival cultures at the 2nd Annual International Symposium on Festival Culture (ISFC).

This paper outlines some thoughts on festivals and the power of a local winter carnival by examining the organisation of communicative and actual resources. It also examines rhetoric and beliefs about community.

First, welcome participants, academics and supporters of festival cultures to the second International Symposium on Festival Culture (ISFC). Events like this, organised by ISFC, allow discussions and exchanges between artists, academics and administrators, and provide opportunities to learn from each other’s festivals through various artistic and financial models and practices.

This was an engaging, workshop-styled session, with presenta- tions by Jarula M.I. Wegner and Kim Johnson, who addressed the theme ‘A New Paradigm: Moving on from Bakhtin’. Along with several points and questions taken from the wider group, and discussion between the presenters, the session became a lively debate about matters of methodology and theoretical approaches...

Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, is a place where the performance of heritage in public is intrinsically woven into the community calendar. Three hundred and sixty-eight festivals take place each year in its villages and towns (Kent 2018), of which this paper paper will explore three: St Germans May Tree Fair (a revived, community-led festival), Trevithick Day and Golroos (both reinvented, community-led festivals).

The public pedagogue whose work, the Tumaini Festival, is the focal point of this paper is Congolese refugee artist Trésor Nzengu Mpauni. He is self-described as “a multi-lingual slam poet, Hip Hop artist, and writer” with the stage name Menes la plume.

“Cruise to the Isle where they began the Beguine,” proclaimed an enticing 1950s Alcoa Cruise Ship advertisement. Aimed at captur- ing the imagination of perspective travelers, the advertisement wove a lyric fantasy that described the Caribbean archipelago
with flowery prose, wrapped around vibrant graphic artistic illustrations of local Martinique and Guadeloupean dancers.

Photography capturing Trinbago Mas' and Carnival, Stick-walking (stilt-walking), Moko Jumbie, Trinbagonian street-life and architecture... Stilt walkers: @jabaholics_tt Siparia

Photography explores carnival practice, culture, people and everyday life on the twin-island of Trinidad and Tobago. Zidane Clarkson @worldwide_jumbies, Point Fortin is featured on the cover.

In Rio de Janeiro, the vibrant world of the diverse ensembles of “street carnival” known as “blocos” is distinct from the world-famous samba schools and has been expanding exponentially in the last two decades. Central to the ethics of many of these blocos has been a commitment to being participatory, free, democratic, and inclusive.

The ceremony of roce (translated: coconut milk) is a premarital tradition practiced by Konkani speaking Roman Catholics residing in the western coastal regions of South India. Aiming to teach and transmit values and customs in the community, the festival involves bathing the bride and groom with coconut milk, dancing, exchanging gifts...

The 2022 carnival season in the United Kingdom has been a busy time for many carnivalists in the Caribbean diasporic community, having moved from online and virtual events and returned into the public space. The utopic feeling of being able to socialise outdoors with others, being able to hug, laugh, dance, whilst observing and sharing the sights, listening to the musical sounds, taking in the smell of Caribbean food cooking...