The Museum of British Folklore
With Simon Costin
Wrapping up our month of exploration into the overlaps of youth culture and folklore we spoke to Simon Costin, founder of the Museum of British Folklore.
Ahead of their major exhibition Making Mischief we spoke about instances of folk in youth and subcultures and what to expect from the exhibition.
Interview by Esta Maffrett | 31.01.23
Why is now the time to open the Museum of British Folklore?
I don’t know whether now is the time exactly but it’s kind of because this project has been ongoing for the past 14 years and I have recognised the need for a museum of folklore. In the UK we’re very good at championing other people’s cultures and seeing folk culture in other countries as amazing for the past 20 to 30 years. For a long time we’ve had all this ourselves and it’s been so overlooked and undervalued, that’s what spurred me on if you like to try and establish the UK’s first museum of folk culture because we don’t really value it.
We’re the only country that hasn’t signed up to the UNESCO treaty for intangible heritage which aims to safeguard folk culture. The UK never signed up because the Conservative government claims we don’t have any folk culture in the UK.
Have you found that youth culture collides with folklore often? Has it come up in your own time recording and researching folklore?
Well, the emphasis of the museum is looking at the seasonal customs and events that happened in the UK. So I would say there are a lot of young people involved in them, if you look at barrel burning for example it starts with children from the age of sort of 11 upwards, so children and young people are very much involved in many of the seasonal customs. But you probably wouldn’t define it as youth culture because so many of the traditions are multi generational. You have grandparents and parents involved, it’s very community based and not specific to a youth culture as such.
But then you’ve got things within youth culture you have things like the smiley faces that are printed onto drugs and the whole range of art on acid tabs, that’s all folkloric. I’m not just associating drugs with youth culture but it’s an instance that has folkloric elements. Our vernacular culture, things that are seen as local but they are still folkloric because the definition of folklore is things that folk do that aren’t high art or haven’t come from a government initiative. They’re things that have sprung up from a need within a particular group and that can be all sorts of things which means there are definite crossovers. Another example might be when somebody went around documenting i’m presuming young people who had tied their laces together on trainers and thrown them over high tension pylons. That’s very folkloric because it’s something that springs up from nowhere and becomes a thing. In the same way there are those bikes when a cyclist has been killed that are painted white by the families or fiends and they become a kind of wayside shrine, that’s very folkloric. So there are crossovers between what you term youth culture and folklore, but nothing kind of specific, it’s a whole range of practices.
What scenes did you identify with growing up and could you see any folkloric comparisons to what you were into or how you heard about fashions?
Growing up my clubbing years were the New Romantics. I was too young to be a Punk but came to the New Romantic and Goth scene. I used to go to the Batcave for instance, I still have my membership card. I was listening to all those bands growing up and that became going to clubs like Taboo and Kinky Gerlinky so in terms of styles and scenes I wasn’t listening to folk bands and there was no relationship to folklore particularly. I was very much tapped into being born in London, living in London and going to London clubs and art school. My musical heroes were Bowie and the people you’d expect from that period.
And so that was my, you know, you listening to all those bands around at that time, and covering a lot and later that grew into going to clubs like taboo and kinky, kinky, and, you know, so in terms of styles and scenes and relationships with folklore, not particularly because, yeah, there wasn't anything like I wasn't listening to, you know, the Waterstones back then or Martin coffee or folk bands at all. It's very much tapped into being born in London, living in London going to London clubs, you know, that sort of thing then going to art school in London. So, you know, all my sort of musical heroes with Bowie and all the people you'd expect from that that period really?
Folklore is so wide reaching, how does the Museum of British Folklore go about narrowing its focus for exhibitions and collections?
What we’ve tried to do with the Museum of British folklore is to prioritise the seasonal customs and events and everything that that entails be it music or costumes or the history of them. It’s very much looking at the seasonal customs and events within the UK, folklore is so far reaching but that’s what we’ve chosen to focus on.
“So there are new rituals being developed and evolving all the time, that’s the nature of folklore, it’s not something ossified and trapped in amber, it’s constantly changing and mutating.”
What is the future of folklore? Are we making new rituals or returning to old ones?
The future of folklore is hard to define because it’s constantly in a state of flux. Folklore by its very nature is a mutating living thing. It’s hard or even impossible to predict what might come along next, but we are making new rituals. In our upcoming exhibition we’re including Notting Hill Carnival because it’s now been going for so long that it has become one of these seasonal traditions. So there’s new things coming all the time.
We’ve noticed a distinct rise in interest in folklore with young people, because of things like instagram I can keep tabs on various young Morris dance teams that have completely reinvented Morris dancing. There’s Boss Morris a young female group who are amazing. There’s Blackthorn Morris who call themselves Hertfordshire's innovative ritualistic folk group and are all very young, they’re taking Border Morris into different directions by weaving in contemporary ritual practice. So instead of just pitching up and dancing they will invite various characters to come along and performs some kind of ritual before they start. So there are new rituals being developed and evolving all the time, that’s the nature of folklore, it’s not something ossified and trapped in amber, it’s constantly changing and mutating. Things die out usually because they’re no longer relevant to that community and sadly that’s why we have lost stuff but if it isn’t relevant anymore then it should change or it should develop into something else.
With young people today we’ve seen a lot of trends that present a return to the outdoors such as Cottagecore and Gorpcore. Do you have any thoughts on why this is?
As I said we have noticed a distinct increase in interest from younger people and I suspect there’s a whole tranche of reasons. One, I think you’ve got a whole new generation of nature writers like Robert McFarlane, Kathleen Jamie, Alys Fowler, Rob Cowen, a whole generation of younger writers on Mother Nature. You’ve got the whole ecological movement driving people to reconnect with nature and the cycles of the year. You’ve got younger people looking towards a spiritual side of existence which isn’t judgemental in the way traditional religions are generally but can connect them to the natural cycles and rhythms of the year. So I think there’s a whole variety of reasons as to why those things are becoming more popular and why the outdoors is being rediscovered. There’s the Right To Roam campaign and bubbling along there’s Extinction Rebellion, all of these things are about having a connection with the natural world and they’re all for the most part being driven by younger people.
Where did the idea for Making Mischief come from and what should we expect from it?
The idea of Making Mischief came about in 2010 when I realised that having done some research, there’s never really been an extensive exhibition that looked at the breadth of folk costume in the UK. I pitched the idea to a museum in London who initially sounded interested, we jumped through hoop after hoop of meeting after meeting and eventually the heads of department gathered in this room where I had costumes on mannequins and photographs. The head of textiles walked over and looked down at one of the costumes and said ‘they’re not very well made, are they?’ I knew then It wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t but i’ve held the torch for this exhibition idea since then and tried repeatedly to get it put on somewhere. The Museum of British Folklore had an exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire which houses the wonderful Enid Marx and Margaret Lambert collection of folk poems and folk art although it’s not specifically folklore, they collect all sorts of things relating to folk culture in the UK. So Compton Verney seemed a natural fit really and we mounted our exhibition on the history of fireworks in Britain there and stayed in touch. They were very very enthusiastic and supportive of doing our exhibition and after many people met and after time the story of our experience with the London museum was related and they thought it was an amazing idea and why had it never been done. UAL came on board with us and they were the ones who raised all the funding from Heritage Lottery. It shows the change in the perception of folklore and vernacular culture because 10 years ago we never would have been given that funding but there’s been a whole shift in the consciousness towards what folklore is and its importance particularly in the UK. There was the huge exhibition of folk art at Tate Britain years ago and the was kind of a signifier for me that there was a shift in the larger establishments taking notice of folklore.
The idea of Making Mischief was sort of to take a snapshot of a relatively small handful of seasonal customs and look at how those communities express themselves through dress. So you’ve got things like the Hastings festival Jack in the Green on May Day which happens every year. When I started getting into that 26 years ago there were a couple of thousand people watching and last year there were 28,00. So that does signify that there is a growing interest and shift as to the importance of folk practice in Britain. In the exhibition you’ll get a surprising look at the way in which communities come together to celebrate what makes them special. You have Abbots Bromley Horn Dance which only happens in Abbots Bromley, you have things like Jack in the Green which has been taken up in other places now and then you’ve got things like Notting Hill Carnival, the Leeds Carnival and Chinese New Year. So it is a big snapshot of seasonal customs and events that are happening in the UK now, although some of these have been happening for hundreds of years none of them are historic.
Abbots Bromley has been happening for hundreds of years and it’s a good example of something that’s changing because women were never allowed to take part and now they are. We also look at the practice of blackface in Morris dancing, traditionally this was seen as fine but of course as culture changes it’s seen now to be offensive and racist. So we look at the way in which teams from the Morris Federation came together and said we will no longer support any Morris teams who still use blackface. So the exhibition looks at the shifting nature of folk practice and how you develop and keep relevance. I think that what’s important from this exhibition is how relevant it is to people. As opposed to the powers that be seeing it as totally irrelevant and having no interest or being worthy of consideration which is why we don’t have a Museum of Folklore in this country.
If you could put one object into the Museum of Youth Culture, what would it be and why?
One thing that I mentioned earlier was my membership to the Batcave. I’ve kept it all these years because it has such happy memories associated with it. So many poignant and informative years. I think that going to clubs like the Batcave and others in London at the time, they were so innovative, they paved the way in which not only you viewed yourself but viewed the world and your place within it. Because there was an outside element to a lot of those clubs, it wasn’t mainstream to be looking the way we did, it has a resonance and relevance for me and my personal journey. So I would put in my membership card for the Batcave.
Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain
11 February - 11 June 2023
Compton Verney
Fete, Carnival & Morris Dancing in Coventry, Late 1950s. Photography by Jerry Barnes, submitted by his son.
