‘Fashion – and the world – are in crisis’: Marina Abramović on ‘7 minutes of silence for peace’ at Glastonbury

“I’m so nervous!” Marina Abramović, who called from London, said yesterday. “There’s not a single artist, and I don’t mean singers, they’re in a different category, but a visual artist, who’s ever done something like this before – 250,000 people. I’m completely freaked out.” In less than 24 hours, Abramović was due to take to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury and ask for seven minutes of silence. “I know I’m doing something important, and I like the risk. I’m also prepared to fail.”

The theme of this year’s festival is “peace,” but even with that concept, what Abramović did tonight was something unusual. Music festivals are places where people go to escape, but Abramović has transformed Glastonbury into a temple of reflection. “People come to have fun. They drink, they do drugs, the weather is nice. But I ask them to shut up and think about the state of this planet, which is truly hell right now,” she said, referring to issues such as global warming and the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. “So many things can go wrong, but I will stand there with my arms open.”

Abramović has made silence his most powerful tool in his work – think “The Artist Is Present”. But tonight, it was more ambitious. Abramović was only supposed to have five minutes on stage in total, which turned into about ten minutes when Glasto mainstay PJ Harvey, whose performance was to follow Abramovic’s appearance, dropped a song from his set to extend the Abramovic’s time on the pyramid, giving him some breathing room to settle in.

Marina Abramović performing “Seven Minutes of Collective Silence” during day three of the Glastonbury Festival 2024.

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The artist was speaking over Zoom from her hotel room, where she had just finished trying on her outfit of the day: a custom kimono-style silk robe made for her by none other than her close friend Riccardo Tisci. “I have journalists who ask me: ‘As an artist, what are you going to do?’ “, reflected Abramović. “I know what I’m doing, but what do you do as a journalist, as a filmmaker, as a worker? We all have the function of (bringing about) change. » This includes fashion, even if the industry seems blind to the disasters unfolding around it.

“Fashion is in crisis,” Abramovic explained. “It’s about recycling different designers for different brands; it’s all about content. But there was an auction yesterday for Vivienne Westwood clothes, and I was looking at stuff and thinking about how revolutionary she was, how incredibly progressive she was at the time in reflecting on society and sending a message. Then I thought about Riccardo and how he changed the world by bringing couture to the street, by integrating the gay and transgender community into the fashion world. At that time, no one was doing any of that.”