Photography and Text by Sophie Pinchetti

This year’s Boom Festival was once again one great galactic adventure! Located around Idanha-A-Nova in Portugal, the psychedelic arts and music Boom Festival returned for this 10th edition with the theme of the “Divine Feminine”, which was echoed through the art installations, sculptures and details around the site.“For many thousands of years, tribes across the globe gathered to celebrate the fertility of the land and of the female womb, the power to recreate and nurture life, the gifts of the Universal Mother, which allow us to survive and thrive”, reads Boom’s Dharma Dragon newspaper.

As usual, many beautiful souls from all walks of life radiated under the sky, dancing with the Moon, Stars, and Sun in embrace!

The Dance Temple line up notably featured the singular presence of the incredibly talented Indian sitar player, Anoushka Shankar. Following on in the footsteps of her father Ravi Shankar, Anoushka proved this ancient instrument could be just as much at home in an electronic dance music festival!

“For many thousands of years, tribes across the globe gathered to celebrate the fertility of the land and of the female womb, the power to recreate and nurture life, the gifts of the Universal Mother, which allow us to survive and thrive”, reads Boom’s Dharma Dragon newspaper.

The Liminal Village featured talks and presentations, from the likes of tribal Chief and founder of the Free West Papua independence movement, Benny Wenda (More on this soon in a special story by The Third Eye!) and Ivan Sawyer from Latin America’s Project Nuevo Mundo – a network of ecovillages, consciousness centers, travelers and volunteers.

The Third Eye had a particularly great time dissolving into some of the artworks at the Visionary Art Gallery.

This year also raised some interesting questions on the evolution of what has come to be known as “transformational” festival culture. Boom Festival reached maximum capacity with around 30,000 Boomers from over 152 nationalities. The growing appeal of these festivals will inevitably bring in changes, as highlighted by recent criticisms and concerns over Burning Man Festival’s increasing gentrification (Burning Man now boasts its own air strip in order to accommodate its newest enthusiasts: tech entrepreneurs and millionaires). Can money and power ultimately be reconciled with the core philosophy at the origin of these festivals – radical self expression, reliance, participation and co-creativity? Time will tell.

Either way, Boom is now set to enter a new stage of development as organisers are planning to launch a crowd funding campaign to secure the acquisition of the land of Herdade de Granja, which has played home to the festival since 2010. Boom envisions to ground a free culture space, a permanent zone for permaculture and sustainable living, independent culture and artistic expression.

The 11th edition of Boom will be held in August 2016. Check out www.boomfestival.org for more information.