Where it all began…
Back in the summer of 2015, artist Jason Atomic had an idea to create The Festival of Dark Arts – Come to the Sabbath and brought like minded creative and curator of the notorious Modern Panic exhibition and event creator of some of London’s most famous events, James Elphick, to help produce and faciliate this wild and crazy project.
Jason Atomic is the legendary editor-in-chief of Satanic Mojo Comix, inspired by the continuing influence on pop culture of the occult revivals of 1960s/70s/80s.
Jason is a torchbearer, specializing in subversion, smut and Satan. Aside from writing and illustration, he has been documenting the freak icons of the underground art, music and club scenes across the world in his colourful energetic paintings and sketchbooks.
The initial concept with Satanic Mojo was to look into his own time-line (1967-present) and create artifacts to represent elements of popular culture that had been derided as Satanic. Comix, exploitation cinema, heavy metal music, etc. The first Festival Of Dark Arts was inspired by that.
The festival was set over one week with an exhibiton filled with paintings, photography, installations, film and performance works inspired by the dark side of psychedelia, The Process Church Of The Final Judgement, The Church Of Satan, Aleister Crowley & his Thelemites, LSD, Underground Comix, Black Light posters, the Manson Family, conspiracy theories, urban myths, Heavy Metal, Hammer Horror, etc.
On the final day of the exhibition was held the first Satanic Flea Market. The idea was to sell off props from the installations, in particular ”Kid’s Room’, as well inviting some friends along to sell occult themed books, comics & VHS tapes, vintage clothing, small-press, underground comix and zines, weird bric-a-brac, tarot cards, posters, prints and other things.
‘Kid’s Room‘ replicated the bedroom of a “Satanic Panic” era heavy metal fan. Named after the late Kid Banano – a Milanese punk rocker and heavy metal fan. Raised Catholic he loved heavy metal, drugs and comic books and turned to black magick. He became part of the thriving 80s London underground squat/art scene and is a perfect example of the ‘Satanic Panic’ era. The installation recalled those dark days of the 1980s when right-wing zealots started playing records backwards looking for hidden messages and were convinced that watching so-called video nasties would turn us into a legion of damned and delinquent serial killers or worse!
“I did an installation about the Satanic Panic and about how heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons fans were getting told that they were evil. I thought this was really stupid as I was one of these kids, so when I did the Satanic Mojo show for the first time, I did an art installation about Satanic Panic and created a teenage heavy metal fan bedroom. At the end of the show however, my dad said ‘You’re not putting that shit back in my garage,’ and so I thought maybe I could have a flea market!” – Jason Atomic
The Satanic Flea Market was hugely popular so Jason and James decided to make it a quartly event, and Jason created a smaller sister event called Dark Arts Fayre. Since then thousands of attendees have explored and bought a diverse array of curiosities from 100s of talented artists, makers, collectors, publishers, and other unsual sellers.
“We have been and continue to be surprised about the popularity of our events. The Satanic flea markets, talks, exhibitions, etc are all incredibly well attended. We get an eclectic crowd of hippies, witches, goths, headbangers, comic geeks, punks, fashionistas, academics, art collectors, their kids and dogs!
It’s become a cultural hub and is growing the community
We will be hosting future markets in 2022
If you are a seller and interested in a future space we please apply through our application form.
If you are a venue interested in hosting us please get in touch.
