My friend Simon Holmes and his crew from Obey UK  www.obeyclothing.co.uk were cool enough to install some art for me at the Shangri-La/Shangri-Hell area of the Glastonbury Music Festival. I was in the company of other awesome artists including Stanley Donwood, who does all the art for Radiohead and Thom Yorke, and is coincidentally part of The Provocateurs show I curated for Chicago – http://www.artalliance.com/! I love the intersection of art and music, so I’m always excited to display my art where great music is happening. I just wish I could have been there myself to catch Arcade Fire, Metallica, Black Keys, De La Soul. Nick Lowe, Jack White, Pixies, etc…!
-Shepard

Shangri-La is an art-directed immersive installation, a vast interactive fictional world brought to life by a creative team of over 1,500 crew, performers and artists. Renowned for its originality, artistic quality and attention to detail, it is an entire realm to fall into, with layer upon layer of creativity to explore.

Each annual show takes ten months to plan, a month to build, 4 days to rave and three weeks to take down. It’s frankly pretty exhausting so why do we bother? Maybe something we do can make a difference to someone, make them famous, make them fall in love, make them feel something incredible, make them see something new, make them think.
Last year Shangri-La focused on contemporary sins and salvations. This year Shangri-La explores the way we create heavens and hells for ourselves.

Shangri-Hell is revealed to be a corporation, the source of power behind all of the world’s most corrupted and cynically profiteering elite. It has bulldozed the old shantytown alleyways and built a shiny new headquarters divided into a maze of offices and bureaucratic departments….

The new incarnation of Shangri-La’s famous alleyways. This hexagonal maze of flagship enterprises houses nano venues, giant artworks, installations and site-specific performance spaces. From the completely absurd to the terrifying real, we invite you to confront some uncomfortable truths about the way we live today.

Shangri-La believes in the power of creative communication and has a strong visual arts programme which provides a unique platform for high quality contemporary artists. This year we’ve scaled up our programme with a new show which reflects some of life’s frustrations and wonders. Huge thanks go to the Arts Council of England for continuing to support our endeavours by enabling us to bring you some very exciting artwork indeed.

We are proud to host some of our favourite artists including Ron English, Mark Jenkins, Dan Hillier, OBEY, Born to Kiln, Ludo, Dr D, Link Leisure, Tomorrow is Ours to Win, Shaka, Steve Cutts, Code fc, Remids, Jim Woodall and many more.