August 22, 2025 |
With this Saturday marking its third edition, Southwark Park’s Rally is carving out its own distinct space in London’s summer calendar. A tricky task in a city brimming with music events and festivals, but Rally is setting itself apart from the rest with a curated artistic programme that accompanies its musical performances. As punters weave through the different stages that will, for this year’s edition, host the likes of Asha Puthli, Ben UFO, Floating Points, Kassie Krut and OK Williams, they will also get the chance to catch artworks from artists across the country. With the promotion of boundary-pushing creativity and grassroots activity being Rally’s beating heart, the artists and artworks selected all present shrewd interpretations of contemporary society that bounce off this year’s theme of ‘A Common Purpose’, giving attendees food for thought as well as a dance-filled day out. Here, we hear from Haja Fanta, Rally’s visual arts and culture programme curator, as well as exhibiting artists Trackie McLeod and Ibrahim Azab, about why they feel music and art work together so well and the importance of platforms like Rally.
Haja Fanta, Rally’s Visual Arts and Culture Programme Curator
1. What criteria did you look for when curating the artists involved in this year’s Rally Festival? What qualities did you want their work to possess?
Towards the end of last year I was reading excerpts of Mark Fisher’s Ghost of My Life, Kara Keeling‘s Queer Times Black Futures and More Brilliant Than The Sun by Kodwo Eshun to make sense of the times we were living in and the futures we were creating. These collections of writings really shaped my approach to curating this year’s art programme. I was looking for artists who were dealing with how we might navigate today through a multitude of ways, whether that was through humour, aesthetics or sound. It was important to me to find artists who could acknowledge that the world feels upside down without lapsing into fatalism. I wanted to bring together ideas emerging from different contexts into a single space, which is why this year features more artists from outside London. The idea was for their works to be in conversation with each other, that means in cohesion and in conflict. Some of the artists are aware of each other, some were not but I felt their ideas came from similar sensibilities; criticality, honesty and a refusal to look away.
2. Why do you feel music and art work so well together in a festival setting? How do you feel it elevates the experience of the attendees to have both?
Music and art work so well together in a festival setting because they are both expressions of creativity and ideas, often feeding into one another. Visual artists are frequently inspired by musicians, and musicians by visual art, so presenting them side by side creates a natural dialogue. For attendees, it offers something fresh and distinctive, the chance to encounter art outside the traditional gallery or museum setting. Last year, I really enjoyed that, in between music sets, people were drawn to engage with the artworks and their curiosity during the art tours. People wanted to know not just about the artists but how they were thinking and their methods of creating. You could see that it sprouted side conversations amongst them. Disseminating art through this experience, I hope creates a new way of seeing not just art but life as well.
3. What impact do you hope the pieces will have on attendees? What feeling do you hope they’ll be left with?
I hope that people feel like they have encountered something new, so much of what we see is a reproduction of things we have already encountered. Even if the works or ideas feel familiar, I want people to feel they have encountered a different perspective, even if they don’t agree with it. This is why I wanted to bring voices from all over the country to this small park in Southwark as it is not often that these voices will come together in a setting like this. I also hope these encounters last beyond the time they are at the festival, whether that is researching the artist or being prompted to check out more art, read more. The idea is that people leave feeling that their world has been expanded a little bit, even an inch is fine.
Trackie McLeod, Sculpture and Print Artist
Trackie McLeod is a Scottish artist based in Glasgow who uses sculpture, textiles, video and print to explore ideas of masculinity and Queerness and their intersection with class, politics and popular culture. For Rally, Trackie will present a piece titled Judy (2024).
1. How did you go about creating/selecting the piece that is going to be displayed at Rally Festival? How do you feel the work aligns with the message of the festival?
The theme of this year’s festival is ‘A Common Purpose’, I interpreted that as something that unites people. Humour is something that I use a lot in my work as a means to connect with a larger audience and to bring people together who may not always feel included in art. With that being said, I’ve chosen to exhibit a piece titled Judy (2024) which is a billboard of cult queer classic The Wizard of Oz which I’ve paired with text that says ‘going to Magaluf with the lads’. It’s a humorous comment on both the Wizard of Oz and lads holidays to Magaluf being a sort of rite of passage for any confused Queer teenager. I love the idea of people raving at Rally and in the background Dorothy and her troops skipping down the yellow brick road to Lineker’s bar and ordering four shots for a tenner.
2. Why do you feel music and art work so well together in a festival setting? How do you feel it elevates the experience of the attendees to have both?
Music and art is like tea and biscuits, one is shit without the other. Festivals at the end of the day are celebrations of culture, having both music and art only amplifies the experience of the festival-goer.
3. How does music influence your work as an artist?
Basquiat said: “Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time”. As an artist who spends a lot of time referencing the past, music is crucial in setting the scene but also reminding me of time and place. For me I find music way more interesting than art, it keeps me inspired.
4. Why are platforms like Rally important to artists like yourself?
I love that this year Rally has chosen to bring together more creatives from outside of London. For me, based in Glasgow it’s a great opportunity to show my work to a different audience. It’s also an exciting way to see how artists from different areas and contexts come together to create something new.
Ibrahim Azab, Mixed Media Artist
London-based artist Ibrahim Azab works across sculpture, performance and photography and investigates process, perception and the blurred boundaries between the subconscious and reality within a post-capitalist framework. For Rally, Ibrahim Azab will present a work that explores concepts related to sculptural practice named After Holbein (2024).
1. How did you go about creating/selecting the piece that is going to be displayed at Rally festival? How do you feel the work aligns with the message of the festival?
After Holbein (2024) was made through a response to current commercial ideologies. It particularly references directly Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting The Ambassadors (1533) and is considered to be a form of Memento Mori. Translating to ‘remember you must die’ in Latin. This for me in itself contradicts the sense of immortality through capitalist ideology, moving away from what is and what is not considered to be real, dead and or/alive.
2. Why do you feel music and art work so well together in a festival setting? How do you feel it elevates the experience of the attendees to have both?
For me, festivals should be a celebration of community, a collective consciousness by bringing together alternative and traditional cultures to further inform a positive change for now and the future. Art, from my understanding, is the application of a medium (or multiple) to a surface, whether that is the body or a material. Through this process, experiences are formed and communicated viscerally, and In particular, image and sound have always been key tools for communication, protest and communication, especially in the space of raves and dancehalls.
3. How does music influence your work as an artist?
Music has always been a huge part of my understanding. In many cases sonic communication is more effective as a transparent medium and form of production. Through my practice I aim to reveal what is behind ideological and manufactured facades and in many situations, sound and music cuts through radically on a larger and accessible scales when it is given the space to do so.
4. Why are platforms like Rally important to artists like yourself?
Rally, in particular offers exposure to artists working against the grain of popular culture and in many ways offers artists a space or arena to fight against what is considered to be/what should be said in contemporary society, despite the current uphill economical and social struggles presented to us from positions of power.
Photography courtesy of Rally Festival.
