Kitefestival Faerila/ Sweden 13.- 15. Juni 2008
Lets go north !
Since years we are familiar with the swedish attitude to kites. It is very relaxed and the kitemakers are far away from being perfectionists but they put a lot of humour into kitemaking. Kiteshops heave a difficult stand here, because most kites are made of paper, plasticbags and bomboo rods from Ikea blinds.
There is a strong social element in kiteflying, mostly
people do a picnic trip with friends, sit in the grass, drinking light
beer, eating strawberries and icecream. The film "Pojken och Draken" by
Bo
Widerberg from 1961 made kiteflying popular all over the country.
Students of the Konstfak artschool in Stockholm organized a major kitefestival for many years, focussing more on the artistic than the technical side of kitemaking.
Faerila is located about 300 km north of Stockholm in the heartland of sweden, has some 3000 inhabitants and so athmosphere is more than relaxed. There are not many attractions and activities for young people. Popular is "Raggare" cruising around in an american limousine, playing rockabilly music. The driver is supposed to stay sober, the passengers stick to their cans of beer. For being an expensive hobby it stays reseved for a minority.
In this situation a kitefestival, may it be as small, is a most welcome relief from everydays routine. For this year, the organizers desided to invite an "international expert" beside the "Gothenburg Big Four"; Stefan, Gunilla, Alice and Olle. Somehow the expert happened to be us.
The first two days were didicated to kitemaking- twenty
students, 13 to 15 years old, had signed in for the workshop.
For heavens sake ! The teenagers will beat us up with the bamboo sticks
for making them build an uncool small sled kite.
What a mistake !
Boys and Girls listen attantivly to our lectures on kite history, different shape of kites and kite aerial photography, they have a lot of questions and work in full concentration building the sled kite. These kites definitely are far from being spectaculer, nevertheless our students were enthusiastic creating and decorating this little thing.
What a relief for the cultural pessimist !
The Stundents do not live behind the moon, of course, but the aberration
of MTV stupidity has not spoiled them completely. You hear some Emo-
giggling, the hardrocker tries to look really dangerous and we spot
rudimentary signs of Krocha culture (but no neon caps and "Bam Oida !!)
We were deeply impressed by the creativity of our students, they came up with new kite designs we realised with them- and they all flew !
It is a pity the weather made kiteflying on the festival day almost impossible and the planned KAP session could not take place, nevertheless the Faerila festival was the most charming we attended in the last couple of years.
Thanks to all, especially to our wonderful students
!!
