23 A festival is a space of social therapy

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Therapy, in its broadest sense, attempts to bring unconsciously (non-discursively) acquired problems into the conscious, discursive awareness. Therapy works when it extends the reflexive ken of the person under therapy. The festival, practiced in public places, extends the reflexive apparatus of the community, bringing into its discourse those practices (and histories) of domination that normally—and necessarily—exist outside of the ken of its members. The festival is a model site for collective therapy.

A festival opens up a space of voluntary discourse and a democratic recoding of knowledges that are previously unavailable for comment. This space is an arena for public meta-commentaries about the social circumstances of the community. In short the festival is a discursive space where the availability of shared intimacy creates the potential for bringing into discourse circumstances that would otherwise remain misunderstood and thus oppressive.

Festivals are many things at the same time, so I do not want to imply that their therapeutic potential—which will be explored below—confers their only, or in some places, their main use. One can certainly imagine a festival where its space of therapy is rarely used, even as one can imagine a city neighborhood where social therapy is sorely needed.