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Samstock: More than just music

By Rory Grant

Samstock is a music festival. The evidence is overwhelming. There’s music, there are bands, there are tents and lo and behold, there are young people. But, scratch the surface and you’ll find that beauty is more than skin deep.

This year the Samstock team made a conscious effort to bring a greater depth of meaning to the festival through music and art. Like music, art has the ability to communicate in ways that go beyond vocabulary.

The team came up with two themes: firstly, a series of signs communicating something of how God sees us: “You are beautiful. You are respected. You are fascinating.”, and secondly, artwork about perceptions of God.

Organising committee member Gareth Bedford says of the signs, “we wanted to say something about the character of God, but also putting messages that are perhaps a little bit contrary to what people get in everyday in magazines and stuff. The way God sees us comes from His character.”

The simple, black and white images were challenging, unconventional, and aimed at communicating God’s love for us without resorting to the kind of Christian jargon that can alienate those who need to feel His love the most.

“We had ‘You are beautiful’ on main stage. A guy told me it was wrong, because the person in the image was beautiful and most of us don’t look like that, but I made a point of choosing the most beautiful image I had for that sign. Maybe we don’t see ourselves like that, but God sees us as stunning, beautiful, and maybe we need to think about that,” says Gareth.

A broad group of people created unique, abstract pieces of art that spoke in a personal way about the artist’s perception of God. A point was made of inviting some “non-arty” people to be involved, says Gareth.

“A lot of them [the artists] didn’t want to do it, but [Ollie Yeoman] really bought into the idea behind it. [His piece] was two buckets full of sand and a rock. It was about the power of God. Stone can be sheared off a mountain in an instant, or can be turned into sand over a long period of time. Which one is more powerful? They’re both powerful in different ways and God’s power works in our lives in different ways at different times, but it’s always there. I really liked that one.”

At this point you may be thinking, “isn’t this a review of a music festival? Why’s he banging on about this art stuff? Was the music that bad?” Well, the music was great. The young people had a fantastic time. The festival even failed to lose money.

But the point is Samstock isn’t simply about making money, or having a good time. Through creativity, the music, the art, the fun and games and the community generated over the weekend, we are drawn closer to our Creator God.

Our hope is that everyone who took part, from the toilet cleaners to the MCs, came along for the ride.