photojournal: Subculture - NeoAncients

Photography by Carmel King and Tom Percival

Last weekend PopUp returned for it’s second Subculture Festival…
And for 2024? A celebration of Beltane under the banner of NeoAncients, first inviting zine creators and cultural phenomenon Weird Walk to curate and open the festival with an evening at Lansdown Hall featuring Cornish singer-songwriter Daisy Rickman, the mysterious folk duo Peter Talisman, the Goblin Band (who are no strangers to our fair town), a DJ set from writer/podcaster Zakia Sewell (who hosted a sold out Q&A with Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller the next day) and Stroud’s own morris dancing leg-ends Boss Morris.

Elsewhere the PopUp team - made up of Ben Wardle, John Best and Julie Howe - carefully (and expertly) programmed a packed weekend of talks, live music, film screenings, DJ sets and Q&A’s with the likes of Gruff Rhys, Jarvis Cocker, Bridget Christie, Jeremy Deller, Cerys Hafana, Richard Norris (to name just a few) all congregating to Stroud - which many might agree has become the perfect place to celebrate Beltane (the most ancient of Celtic festivals) and also a resurgence of interest and love of English Folk history, arts and culture.

We sernt our contributing Good On Paper photographers Tom Percival and Carmel KIng along to capture just some of the events which took place across various venues in the centre of Stroud for our ongoing photojournal series…

Photos by Tom Percival

Photography by Carmel King