audiobook South from Ephesus: Travels through Aegean Turkey by Brian Sewell in Arts-Photography

Description

The Festival of Britain in 1951 transformed the way people saw their war-ravaged nation. Giving Britons an intimate experience of contemporary design and modern building; it helped them accept a landscape under reconstruction; and brought hope of a better world to come. The Festival of Britain: A Land and Its People travels beyond the Festivalrsquo;s spectacular centrepiece at Londonrsquo;s South Bank; to events held the length and breadth of the four nations; to which hundreds of the countryrsquo;s greatest architects; artists and designers contributed. It explores exhibitions in Poplar; Battersea and South Kensington in London; Belfast; Glasgow and Wales; a touring show carried on four lorries and another aboard an ex-aircraft carrier. It reveals how all these exhibitions and also plays; poetry; art and films commissioned for the Festival had a single focus: to unite lsquo;the land and people of Britainrsquo;.Drawing on ten thousand previously unseen sketches and plans; photographs and fascinating interviews; Harriet Atkinson unveils how the Festival made the whole country an exhibition ground. Everything was on show from homes to farms and factories; and the land itself. She reveals the Festivalrsquo;s genesis in wartime propaganda and international exhibitions and howthe events gave people a good time while presenting the nation as a model democracy as Britain entered the Cold War. Ultimately; the Festival served to rekindle a downtrodden populationrsquo;s love for a disfigured landscape. The Festival of Britain: A Land and Its People is a compelling exploration of these unparalleled events.