FRIDAY 15TH MAY

From 17:00
Caught by the River DJs ease us into the weekend with a selection of nature-adjacent tunes and field recordings. A chilled backdrop to getting your bearings, catching up with pals and taking a deep breath out. Drift in and out of the barn as you please.

19:00
French/British alt-pop singer songwriter Clémentine March takes to the stage, playing tracks from her just-released third album Powder Keg (PRAH Recordings). Influenced by Brazilian music, indie rock and Robert Wyatt, her music draws a map between the regions of the world where she’s lived.

20:30
Confronting thoughts about collectivism, our relationship with the natural world and the weight of consciousness with directness and purpose, esteemed 4-piece Modern Nature play songs from 2025’s critically acclaimed The Heat Warps.

21:30
Caught by the River DJs & friends (including Clémentine March) play the night out with more tunes to vibe, unwind and bliss out to.

SATURDAY 16TH MAY

Workshops available before main barn opens (see workshops selection below).

From 10.30
Music to Watch Seeds Grow By play ambient morning musings from the label — the perfect way to start the day.

11:00
Music to Watch Seeds Grow By. What began as a soundtrack for the first signs of life from Tia & Wil of Ransom Note Records has sprouted across two growing seasons — ambient, minimalist & new-age soundscapes with the occasional cosmic detour. Here, Wil gives some background to the label’s past, present and future, and is joined by experimental artist and producer Kayla Painter, who will discuss her upcoming work for the label.

11:55
Live performance from Kayla Painter. 

12:50
Talking to Ghosts: Memoir, Biography, Place and Time. Award-winning rural and nature writer and campaigner Nicola Chester speaks to CBTR’s Tallulah Brennan about how the ghosts of our past, present and future aren’t always human; are sometimes ourselves or people with relevance now, with something to say. How listening to, and interrogating them can help us understand what we’ve lost and how, so we can face the future with hope and action. This talk hinges on Nicola’s most recent book Ghosts of the Farm: the true story of two wannabe women farmers, 60-80 years apart in the same fields, and the ghosts of our pasts, present and futures. Special guest Gareth Fulton joins the panel to contextualise Elmley and its agricultural history within Nicola’s work.

13:45
Are You Lost? Community and Nature in the Forest of Bowland and Beyond. Rob St John and Tallulah Brennan will discuss Rob’s recent project Are You Lost?, and what happens when artists connect with community in a meaningful way. Rob is an artist and writer based in rural Lancashire. His practice is focused on the blurrings of nature and culture in contemporary landscapes. He works primarily across installation, sound, moving image and text. His work, usually based on slow periods of fieldwork and socially-engaged practice, has been shown/heard at Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Barbican, The British Museum, The National Gallery, Tramway Glasgow, The Royal Geographical Society, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The British Textile Biennial, and many others. He has variously produced, edited and contributed to numerous publications, both artistic and academic.

14:40
Make Some Space for Resistance. Expanding on her far-reaching work on community spaces, author Emma Warren considers our need for collective community space and action in a time of tech billionaires and the far right. Emma’s book Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History (Faber, 2025) was named an Irish Times read of the year. Dance Your Way Home (2023) was a Guardian book of the year and formed the basis of last year’s summer season at the Southbank Centre. Emma is also the author of Document Your Culture (Sweet Machine, 2020), Steam Down (Rough Trade Books, 2019), and Make Some Space (Sweet Machine, 2019). A dual citizen of Ireland and the UK, her monthly radio show on Worldwide FM ran for six years. Emma will be joined by special guest Mathew Clayton.

15:45
Lamine — plant shop owner, and one half of plant and fungi biosonification duo Plants Can Dance — demonstrates how music can be made from plants’ biorhythms, using specimens collected from the Elmley site. This slot features a live performance from Lamine, as well as an opportunity to try out biosonification for yourself.

16:55
We Came By Sea: Horatio Clare in conversation with Tallulah Brennan. Off the back of his recent book We Came By Sea (Little Toller, 2025), Horatio Clare and Tallulah discuss human and humane approaches to people caught up in the ‘small boats’ crisis. Horatio is a Welsh writer and broadcaster. His acclaimed memoirs, travel and children’s books include Running for the Hills (Somerset Maugham Award), A Single Swallow, Down to the Sea in Ships (Stanford Dolman Award), and Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot (Branford Boase Award), and the ‘game-changing’ Heavy Light – Daily Telegraph. Horatio presents Is Psychiatry Working? on BBC Radio 4 and writes regularly for the international press. He also delivers training to NHS intervention teams and lectures in non-fiction at the University of Manchester.

17:50
The Music of Zakia Sewell’s Albion. Emma Warren and Zakia Sewell discuss Zakia’s recent book Finding Albion — an exploration of British national identity, folk culture and myth (Hodder Press, 2026) — accompanied by related music selections from Zakia. Zakia Sewell is a writer, DJ and broadcaster based in London. She hosts Dream Time on BBC Radio 6 Music, and used to host the flagship breakfast show on NTS Radio. For the past eight years she has been producing and presenting radio documentaries and podcasts for platforms such as BBC Radio 3 and 4, Tate and Camden Arts Centre. Her acclaimed four-part Radio 4 series My Albion was an inspiration for her book. Her writing has appeared in publications including Tate Etc., Resident Advisor and Weird Walk as well as in the essay collection This Woman’s Work.

19:15
Zakia Sewell takes over the decks, playing a selection of serene and beautiful records.

21:30
Along with his 5-piece band, composer and producer Andrew Wasylyk — whose arrangements span the breadth of contemporary-classical, ambient soundscapes, cinematic scores, spiritual jazz and experimental electronica — plays a headline set that is not to be missed. Wasylyk’s last 5 albums have been nominated for Scottish Album of The Year Award. This includes 2020’s, Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation, which entered the UK Official Jazz & Blues chart at #6 and was Gideon Coe’s (BBC Radio 6Music) Album Of The Year. His work has been displayed in National Galleries Of Scotland and collected by V&A Dundee.

22:45-late
Heavenly Jukebox is the DJ arm of the legendary Heavenly Recordings, who have been playing the finest records and tearing up the dancefloor and fields at festivals, club, gigs and parties since 1990. They are also the resident DJs at The Social in London and host a monthly radio show on Soho Radio.

ACROSS THE WEEKEND, OUTSIDE THE BARN

Bird ringing
We had hoped to have a perfectly timed opportunity for bird ringing over the weekend but unfortunately the Elmley ecologists have let us know this is now not possible, as the target birds are nesting earlier than expected and it would therefore be unethical to hold them off the nest or from feeding young. We have instead scheduled a tour/talk with the reserve manager about the Curlew Recovery Project and the key species on the reserve, on the Friday and Saturday (time will be advertised on boards outside the barn each day). We have also added a moth trapping session on Saturday morning.

Welmarsh Hide
Elmley volunteers will be offering the opportunity to get your eyes round some hi-spec birding kit (kind courtesy of Swarovski Optik).

Self-directed walking, exploring, swimming and bird-watching is available all weekend. The swimming ponds are accessible all day, and the swimming at Cockleshell Beach is tide-dependent.

A selection of short nature-related films will be playing in Swale Studios.

SATURDAY ONLY
Moth trapping
Drop-in session 9.30-11:00 with Elmley volunteers. Get up close and personal with some of Elmley’s fuzziest residents.