‘Give unconditional love to each other’: artist Marina Abramović silences Glastonbury for seven minutes

It’s been home to some of the UK’s loudest singalongs, most propulsive rap lyrics and most cacophonous guitar solos. But the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury experienced something almost unprecedented in its history on Friday: total silence.

The Serbian artist Marina Abramović, invited by festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis, led the audience in what she called a “collaboration” called Seven Minutes of Collective Silence, to “see how we can feel positive energy in the entire universe” and act as a bulwark against the horrors of war and violence.

Given it was announced only a day prior, there were understandable fears that the audience would not come along in the spirit of the collaboration, and might end up chattering or even shouting out during the intended silence. But in the end, aside from some very isolated screams and shouts, the only sound moving across the grass of the Pyramid stage field was the wind blowing through the valley, and the distant thump of other stages’ performances.