Pestival@ZSL

 

Pestival is now artist in residence at ZSL London Zoo!

Pestival is devising and developing the Arts programme here at London Zoo to be rolled out over the coming years, and will be launching:

Live Arts for Live Animals

Roar and Unplugged Sessions

The Zoo Arts Trail

Pestival has the ambitious goal to stimulate a cultural shift in the way we understand and engage with the natural world and conservation issues, by providing an experimental platform to explore these ideas through a collaboration of art, performance, design, technology and immersive experiences. By bringing together the sciences and the arts, Pestival @ ZSL London Zoo celebrates not only biodiversity, but human and cultural diversity as well.

Pestival hopes to establish London Zoo as a cultural as well as a conservation hub for London, by inviting selected collaborators to create new work in and around ZSL London Zoo.

 

For more info, here's further reading about us in ZSL London Zoo's 'Wild About' magazine.

 

Our story at ZSL London Zoo so far...

At the top of the page you can see our swanky HQ; it's an old shepherd's hut that has been created into a working art work by Pestival's good friend the artist Bob and Roberta Smith...

It's on the North Bank of the Zoo and from our open door we can hear gibbons howling, wild-dogs squealing and kookaburras calling. Pop in if you are in the area!

 

Here's the hut before it was painted, arriving on a truck by the Snowdon Avery. Tricky stuff. As you can just about see, it's set on old cast iron wheels.

 

Shepherds Huts are, of course, made to withstand extreme temperatures so while the UK endured its worst winter in decades in 2010/2011, we were toasty-warm inside the hut.

 

 

 

 

And here is the artist known as Bob and Roberta Smith painting the hut, with a helping hand from Harry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob and Roberta Smith taking a well-deserved nap after all his hard work.

 

He certainly deserved it. Well done Bob and Roberta.

 

 

 

 

 

Also, here's artist Matthew Robbins who we adore creating his delightful installation in the windows of the North Bank Exit as part of the art trail at the Zoo.

 

The installation is called  'Roboinsects' and tells the story of when the robots go looking for planet earth but take the wrong direction and end up on a similar planet run by roboinsects.

 

 

 

One of our feathered neighbours, Roberta, the blue and gold macaw, thinks she's human and likes to come and say hello now and again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roberta meeting the artist known as Bob and Roberta Smith (confused? You will be). It was love at first sight.

 

 

 

 

Pestival's partnership with ZSL London Zoo

Pestival collaborates with ZSL London Zoo as Artist in Residence on a variety of multi-media projects and events.