Absence and distance: reflections on festival landscapes in a pandemic

ABSTRACT Some studies of self and landscape in festival events emphasise presence, closeness, and connectedness and focus on embodiment, inhabitation, and dwelling. But in the COVID-19 pandemic, absence and distance appear as increasingly common terms to describe festival events and landscapes that have changed in unanticipated ways. The risk that festivals would become hotspots of virus transmission requiring physical distancing and limits on movement resulted in significant alteration of festivals or their cancellation and absence from people’s lifeworlds. In this study, we explore how absence and distance have unfolded in lived experiences of altered festival landscapes during the pandemic and reflect on how care has been mobilised and emplaced.