OD Festival

Abstract

The festival takes its name from the Od: [Od pronounced Odd] a crooked stream that meanders through the neighbouring villages of East and West Coker, Somerset, UK. Led by Coker-based OSR Projects, Od Arts Festival 2023 – Still & still moving, takes its title from T.S Eliot’s poem East Coker, the second of his famous Four Quartets:

…Love is most nearly itself

When here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here or there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

From sunken lanes and smugglers paths to virtual journeys through computer generated worlds, Od Arts Festival 2023 – Still and still moving will explore the movement of bodies through space, both real and imagined.

The festival will disrupt the surface stillness of its rural setting with art and creative community activity. It will explore the different ways we navigate, move in and connect to the world around us, from ancient way-making and international trade to the almost imperceptible slow motion of plants and rocks.