Top image: Kibbo Kift Kindred, men and boys on camp  parade with totems, 1925  Image courtesy of Kibbo Kift Foundation

In the aftermath of the First World War, young people across Europe were imagining new ways of living that would create new utopias, experimenting with alternative living alongside new artistic ideas.

Formed in reaction to the perceived militaristic nature of the Scouts, the Kibbo Kift Kindred were formed by social reform activist and artist John Hargrave in 1920, who drew on influences as disparate as Anglo-Saxon and Ancient Egyptian mythology, contemporary art and fashion design, the occult, and of course, woodcraft.

Throughout the 20s, Kibbo Kift members took to the British countryside hundreds at a time to perform psychedelic rituals, the British countryside became awash with Kibbo Kift members taking a break from their normal lives to create new pagan identities, enact psychedelic rituals, and train for a new society.

Despite containing prominent members such as H.G. Wells, surrealist photographer Angus McBean, and suffragettes Emmeline Pethwick Lawrence and Mary Neal, the Kibbo Kift have mostly been airbrushed out of history.

A new exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery explores their history and decline, we spoke to the co-curator Nayia Yiakoumaki to find out more.

Robert Greer: How do you look at the Kibbo Kift within the context of the 1920s?
Nayia Yiakoumaki: Today we can interpret them within the context of art history, but at the time their focus was to be an open air campaigning educational group, and to create a new society. Their influence from the world around them was so profound, they were so open minded. First with the social aspect and the belief they had in changing the world, and secondly, because of their graphic design. They were mainly middle class people, some were working in advertising, some were designers, photographers… they were very aware of the visual influences of the era that they were in.

They also believed that you had to go through various stages of cultural development to then become the Kibbo Kift person. That’s why there’s all these influences, from Ancient Egypt to Anglo-Saxon through Futurism – they thought that you had to go through everything in order to re-emerge as this new person who will change the world. On that journey through culture they picked up visual elements, but they didn’t have much discrimination between a work of art as an object or a piece of woodcraft as an object. They were just doing things all of the time.

RG: The 20s was a period where bold symbols, manifestos, and uniforms were a major force in the art world in movements like Futurism and Bauhaus, as well as in youth movements such as the Wandervogel and the Kibbo Kift. What was it about the era that created this shift?
NY: After the First World War, there was not just loss of life and economic strife, but a complete destruction of social bonds. Most of the members of these groups were people in their 20s, maybe their 30s, and they must have experienced the disappointment in what happened,there was a lot of re-thinking about how to make their lives more meaningful. I think that’s why we see a lot of manifestos in particular.

Dada for instance was created during the end of the war, and the Kibbo Kift Kindred fall into this category of people who were re-thinking how to move forward from the devastating disappointment for the human race. There were new social liberties appearing, for example women being able to smoke in public and have more of a presence in society outside of being the mother at home. That was also reflected in the Kibbo Kift early recruitment, which was a lot of women, and a lot of suffragettes in particular, who recruited other people as well. These new ideals, new ways of life, even new costumes and designs, it all became a huge melting pot in the desire for change.

RG: Am I right in thinking that the designs for the banners, totems and clothes were largely by John Hargrave?
NY: Not quite. John Hargrave was obviously very influential in the visual language of the Kibbo Kift, and had a direct link to the advertising world. But I think that everyone was free to design their own objects, particularly the totems, which had to be designed by the owner of the item. Hargrave used to say that if a caveman could draw, then 20th century men and women can have no excuse.

As far as I understand Hargrave designed most of the banners, but there was also a woman called Blue Falcon (Katherine Milnes) who was in charge of the Kinlog, which is full of illustrations. There was also a group of women called the Emblazoners who would sew the visual designs onto the garments. So I think that it wasn’t just him, but a whole group of people who were very sensitive, and very aware and capable of producing the final product. Everyone would be given a pseudonym, which would be made into a wood carved symbol and would then become your identity. You had to live with your name and your design as a Kibbo Kift member for all the years you were recruited, and if your ideas changed then this still stayed the same and would represent you.

RG: On the one hand that makes me think of some kind of pre-medieval paganism, but on the other hand it evokes brands and advertising.
NY: Yes, and that’s why we were keen to include everyday objects like recruitment flyers and the awards for recruiting the most members. They were so well branded, they definitely understood how these things worked.

RG: On the occult elements of the Kibbo Kift, I’ve read that John Hargrave was quite influenced by Aleister Crowley. Can you shed any light on how that influence was manifested?
NY: We know a little…We know very well that ceremony and ritual was a major part of any gathering, but the reason that we don’t know very much about the actual rituals is that at some point they stopped archiving this side. Even to become a Kibbo Kift member was very difficult, you had to go through lots of interviews and prove that you were committed. We don’t know much but we have pictures that show some kind of ceremonies, but unfortunately we don’t know what they are. However I’m sure that more information will come to light eventually. They were very influenced by theosophy and I think at the time they were taking in a lot of different influences from things that were developing in the 20s.

I know a historian who is more interested in witchcraft, and when he came to the show, he said that there were words engraved on certain objects that came from English witchcraft, so there were certainly elements, although I can’t know for sure. There was a wooden leaf in particular that would be passed around to inform people of the next gathering, this was such an object, and there were others that he commented on too. It’s something we are asked about a lot, but unfortunately the archives don’t document these elements, and are focussed more on design, education, and ideas. This was an archive exhibition, and we had to decode a lot of the archive.

RG: One of the most interesting banners for me was the one depicting vehicles and nature…
NY: This is a very interesting banner, which is double sided, and is so futuristic in the way they show the contradiction between nature and machine. I don’t think it was necessarily welcoming the vehicle but also showing it as an omen of negativity. They show the aeroplane as part of the developing world, how fast it’s progressing, and that we have to keep in contact with nature.

RG: John Hargrave attributes the decline of the Kibbo Kift to its move from the pastoral to becoming a group based around social and political reform. Would you agree with this?
NY: I think that was one reason why that happened, there were a lot of people there that really believed in the pastoral life of the British countryside, and they saw that way of living as the most appropriate to achieve these ideas of the new men and women. When it became political, radical, and in a way more interesting, a lot of people were put off by that in comparison to what they had before. But John Hargrave was the leader, and in the end he became interested in the idea of Social Credit as the way to create an economic utopia.

RG: The Kibbo Kift were a big movement, but not many people know about them in the present day. Why do you think it fell out of the public consciousness so dramatically?
NY: I think we can only speculate. You’re right, they’re hugely unknown, but in this exhibition and book we have animated their archive for the first time, and hopefully that will have a profound effect on the public. But for years I would say to people that we had an exhibition of the Kibbo Kift in 1929 at the Whitechapel Gallery, but nobody knew anything about it, even people who were specialists in movements of the 20s. Maybe it’s because most of the records were personal records, and because they became the Green Shirts, maybe people didn’t feel strong enough to come forward. 

One of the totems in the exhibition came from a woman called Dione. Her grandson came to the exhibition, a man in his 50s who brought us the totem on the train from Cornwall, and he said “Was my grandmother associated with this?” We explained to him that she was a major figure. He had no idea, and couldn’t comprehend it – they had been using the totem as an umbrella stand. He did say however that it finally explained his grandparents obsession with wood carving – he would get one for Christmas every year.

Intellectual Barbarians: The Kibbo Kift Kindred runs at The Whitechapel Gallery until 13th March
An accompanying book, The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians by Annebella Pollen, is out now via Donlon Books