To mark the 130th anniversary of the Ryde Carnival, Shademakers were commissioned to produce a float. The project was supported through an Arts Council grant for the Arts, from a Ryde Carnival Committee application. As heritage is a very important aspect of the Isle of Wight, it was important for us to reflect or regard those periods in history, a type of history we could re-invent. Of the information available to us, it was clear that great emphasis was placed on Carnivals during the reign of Victoria and no doubt, patriotic loyalty played a role for many resident, trader, members of royal court, military and council, including many of society’s aspirants of the age. Masque Balls at the Town Hall were a feature but, no more. Patronage from Shopkeepers and Businesses disappeared, trends waned but heritage remains.
We have a tall order to fulfil in our contemporary age, one of apathy, ownership, time and money. Of this time, Hugh Jackman in the ‘Greatest Showman’ became a Hollywood classic movie telling a less honest interpretation of the life of P,T Barnum, depicting him as a paragon of virtue for a menagerie of misfits. At the same time 200 years prior, Percy Bysche Shelley was writing the ‘Masque of Anarchy’ following the massacre of innocents at Peterloo, Manchester.
Our modern heritage float became a jail carriage with a flourish ribbon sign ‘rise like lions from slumber……..ye are many, they are few’ crowning the walls. The pandas incarcerated within played with children’s musical drums, trumpets, bells and shakers, and looked, for all intents and purposes, like cuddly captives, incapable of any misdemeanour whilst they played to the crowd and charmed the children, but chased their mothers.
Above the scene was the grizzly bear driven mad with the demands set by the audience for their non paying pleasure, beating out of rhythmless din of insanity and suffering the indignity of having to wear a tutu. In many ways the float represented the loss of innocence, and whether we are woke or not, the belief that the past was some great period of national pride is a problem. It is one of the reasons as a national society we can not evolve from the mould in which we are formed.
