Tom Hunter is known for social documentary projects examining alternative communities, contemporary music and experimental cultures in London and across Europe. In “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” he turns to the Glastonbury Festival, which since its beginnings in the 1970s was driven by the ethos of the hippie movements. At the 2017 festival Hunter set up his “naked truth photo booth” and invited festivalgoers to pose naked for portraits inside the wooden booth. In the spirit of the first Summer of Love, participants were asked to reimagine the liberation of that era and embrace the freedom of nudity. Hunter made the portraits with a medium format film camera, working in the classical tradition of 19th-century portrait photographers.
The book is accompanied by text and images by Hunter’s parents, Sheelagh Hunter and Ian Hunter, both credited as authors. Their contribution draws on their visit to the 1970 Isle of Wight festival and on their experiences of freedom, liberty and counterculture in the early 1970s. Their material sits alongside Hunter’s photographs of the 2017 festival.
Together the photographs and texts set a contemporary vision of today’s festival culture against a nostalgic, historical view of the first Summer of Love. The book was published by Hartmann Books in 2019 with texts in English and German. It runs to 56 pages and includes 40 colour illustrations, measures 17 by 24 cm, and is issued as a threadknotted broschure with an 8-page cover. Design is by Ben Weaver. ISBN 978-3-906070-032-6.
