Assemble to curate Kingdom Festival with jazz label Rhythm Section

Multi-disciplinary collective Assemble, which has achieved notoriety for its regenerative work in overlooked spaces, has been announced as the first architecture curator of Kingdom Festival at Belvoir Castle this summer. “Kingdom offers us a chance to push boundaries, to really think about the way in which people come together to experience music, and what we can do to heighten that experience,” says Assemble co-founder Joe Halligan. “We can be bold and take risks with the design, as we know it only has to last a few days!”

Assemble has been paired to collaborate with Rhythm Section, the exciting south London-based jazz label, and a group of artists that Halligan is excited to begin work with. “The opportunity to work with Bradley Zero and the team at Rhythm Section is a dream,” he enthuses. “They’ve been putting on some of the best parties in London for almost a decade now, and I know they have strong opinions about how things should be.”

The excitement about the collaboration is mutual, with Rhythm Section co-founder, Bradley Zero, speaking in equally glowing terms. “I’ve known the Assemble crew for a while, and we’ve often talked about building a nightclub or working on a festival together, so it’s very exciting to be collaborating with them on Kingdom.”

The festival, that will take place from 24 – 27 July 2020 at Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire has been billed as a bringing together of leading names from architecture, design, music and food, in a collaboration that “heralds a new take on the festival format.”

The remainder of the lineup will be announced at the end of February, to coincide with tickets going on general release.

Joining a bill that will host a variety of artists across different mediums, Assemble is relishing the opportunity to experiment in these unique surroundings. “Thinking about the relationship between sound and space - how the ideas of music, performance, gathering - can generate architectural form is something that we are very interested in,” Halligan tells It’s Nice That.

“The temporary nature of a festival structure also affords certain possibilities for testing new material and construction ideas, so hopefully we can do something really bold and challenging.”