FORM will return to Arcosanti in 2018. Organizers of the annual three-day festival and retreat announced that the event will take place from May 11 to 13.
Registration for the event is open starting today, December 18.
Those registering and applying to attend the relatively small-scale event, which blends art, music, and camping, will notice a few changes from years past.
The application and registration process is now simultaneous. However, the festival is an exclusive experience, and applying to attend does not guarantee a ticket. Press materials note that this newly implemented application process is designed to "promote diversity, integrity, and creativity" among 2018 festival attendees.
Pricing details weren't immediately available.
Besides the expedited signup, FORM is also offering a variety of new packages for attendees. They include re-entry passes for locals or those who'd like to stay off-site, on-site RV camping, and mid-tier luxury camping.
Patron bundles are also available, and include luxury camping accommodations as well as food and beverage for up to four people.
Lineup details have not been announced as of this writing. Held annually since 2014, the festival previously has featured Solange, Thundercat, and Hundred Waters, the L.A.-based band who co-founded FORM in 2014 and curate the event.
Arcosanti is an experimental town and artist colony located near Mayer, about an hour north of Phoenix. It was designed by the late Arizona-based architect Paolo Soleri. Recently, Soleri has been the subject of sexual abuse allegations circulating online.
In mid-November, Daniela Soleri — a researcher and lecturer at UC Santa Barbara and the daughter of the renowned architect — published an essay on Medium titled "Sexual abuse: It’s you, him, and his work." In it, she writes that her father molested and attempted to rape her, and that some colleagues close to Paolo Soleri, who died in 2013, have known about the alleged abuse for years.
"He had good qualities — intelligence, charisma, discipline, skill — he was extraordinary in a number of ways. But like many such people, including many artists, he was a fierce narcissist, capable only of seeing others in terms of their role in his world," she writes. "...The mindset he and those around him had always cultivated to help it all make sense suddenly didn’t work for me anymore. Things happened, I woke up. It’s been rough but enlightening. I’ve experienced firsthand a familiar storyline about public figures and their work, about abuse and delusion."
FORM's founders are aware of Daniela Soleri's allegations, and addressed them in a statement accompanying the forthcoming festival's announcement.
"It is with the heaviest of hearts that we recently learned of Daniela Soleri’s trauma caused by her late
father, Paolo Soleri," the statement opens. "There is no rationale that would ever make his behavior towards her acceptable. We are here to voice FORM’s unequivocal support of Daniela, and stand firmly alongside all victims of domestic violence. No person should feel silenced or ashamed to be a victim."
The founders' statement supportively references Daniel Soleri's essay, and says that "after careful consideration," they unanimously decided to keep the festival at Arcosanti and to expand educational and "cause-focused" programs offered during the event. (In 2017, FORM programming included a virtual reality presentation from Planned Parenthood.)
Programming aside, the festival will also donate some proceeds to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
"Arcosanti is more than the vision of one man. It is a collection of ideas and projects realized through the creativity, resourcefulness, collaboration and dedicated volunteer work of over 8,000 people spanning the past 47 years," the statement goes on. "While Soleri’s legacy as an individual must be judiciously reconsidered, FORM still firmly believes in Arcosanti and its core values."
More details about FORM will be released in the coming months.