On Sunday 4th July we will be screening DROP CITY in partnership with Ports Fest as part of their Remember, Reimagine, Reset themed festival on The Big Screen in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth. Bring a deckchair, a picnic and a blanket. The screening is FREE, no need to book, just rock up and enjoy.
It is an incredibly rare chance to see this iconic film which charts the history of one of the first hippie communes ever established in the mid 1960's on the desert plains of Trinidad, Colorado.
Drop City is a story about artists who rejected the war-mongering and materialistic sensibilities that dominated the 1960s and chose instead to invent their own civilization. They had little to go on – they were at the forefront of the rural communes of the sixties – other than the instinct that people might thrive if they were free to live simply, share resources, and have time to do creative work. But Drop City was more than just an experiment in living outside of mainstream culture. It was, for several years, a laboratory for inventing new ways to build with geometric form and discarded materials.
The Droppers' vision of life-as-art was evidenced in their iconographic dwellings, which were based on Buckminster Fuller's vision for geodesic domes and the crystalline designs of Steve Baer, a pioneer in fractal geometric design and solar energy, who used Drop City as a lab for experimental building.
The Droppers built the community for nearly nothing from salvaged materials, including culled lumber and chopped-out car tops. In 1966 Fuller honored Drop City with his Dymaxion Award for "poetically economic structural accomplishments." But the flood of attention led to overcrowding. By late 1969 all of the long-time residents had departed and the community was abandoned to transients. By 1973, Drop City had become the world's first geodesic ghost town.
The story is brought to life through interviews with former Droppers (artists, writers, inventors and activists), hand-drawn animation, and a trove of archival material.
Drop City celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015, interestingly many of the ideals they stood for way back in the sixties are still so very pertinent today.
So see you there on Sunday 4th July at 7.00pm, bring a deckchair, a picnic and a blanket/sunshade!
See the trailer here....
See the complete Ports Fest programme here....