Bristol Light Festival is back! The fifth iteration of the annual event began on Friday 31st January and will run until Sunday 9th February, with 10 installations brightening up the city at a traditionally dark time of the year.
Bristol Light Festival’s digital programme is now available to view here.
The festival covers much of the city centre, with artworks located in the Harbourside, Broadmead, College Green, St Mary Redcliffe Gardens and beyond…
College Green has become home to a flock of bright and beautiful flamingos, delighting visitors with a whimsical display of nature’s most flamboyant creatures.
Shrouding the Amphitheatre in a cosmic blend of light and sound, Somnius responds to the audience’s every move, immersing crowds in a playful environment that puts them in control of their experience.
Those crossing Castle Bridge are being painted in reflections of shimmering light as they admire the suspended facade of more than 1,800 recycled CDs and DVDs, inspired by the waters of Sydney Harbour.
Back for another year of musical delights, Swing Song can be found on Queen Square. Due to popular demand, Bristol Light Festival organisers have introduced a fast track ticket for one set of swings at this year’s event. More information around this, including how to book, is available to view at bristollightfestival.com/swingsong
Lighting up the gardens of St Stephens Church is Our Beating Heart, an enormous heart-shaped disco ball that brings people together in its display of shared love.
At Broadmead, visitors to the festival can find Tetra, a tactile installation that needs to be engaged with to truly be felt and understood, taking inspiration from the many forces of nature.
Temple Church has been illuminated into a world of lasers and mirrors, where moving footage of natural phenomena like flora and the cosmos are being transformed into floating abstractions of light with Parallels.
The world premiere of The Whilers can be found in St Mary Redcliffe Gardens, where otherworldly creatures greet visitors as they interact with each other in an awe-inspiring experience.
Bringing the history of drum and bass to the centre of Bristol, Anthems: Volume One is inspired by the historic connection between the city and DnB music and can be found at Quakers Friars.
Katherine Jewkes, Creative Director of Bristol Light Festival, said:
“Bristol Light Festival 2025 is underway and it’s amazing to see such a positive response from visitors once again.This year brings such a variety of artworks, but at their core is a real sense of togetherness and connection with audiences. We look forward to seeing what the run holds for visitors and hope that even more people will come to Bristol to see all that is on offer!”
For the current edition of Bristol Light Festival, several Fringe events are happening across the city to allow visitors to amplify their experience.
Photography Walk – Monday 3rd February and Wednesday 5th February, 5:30 – 7pm
Award-winning photographer Adrian Wyatt will be guiding budding photographers around the installations, offering guidance on how to capture the best shots of the installations.
Walking Tours – Monday 3rd, Tuesday 4th, Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th February, 5:30 – 7pm
An opportunity for festival-goers to orientate themselves within the locations and to learn about the installations. Participants can choose between the ‘waterfront’ or ‘central’ routes, or join an accessible tour.
Official Silent Disco Tour – Wednesday 5th February, 5:30 – 6:30pm, Starting at Bristol Cathedral
On this one hour tour, visitors are invited to boogie their way between art installations accompanied by hit tunes from across the decades. High tech headphones mean that users will be able to hear both the music and their tour guide as they make their way around some of the festival’s highlights.
Neon Kids Rave – Thursday 6th February, 4 – 7pm, Bambalan
The whole family is invited to brighten up February with a non-stop rave party including bright colours and plenty of opportunities to boogie. Tickets can be purchased here
Lights Under the Sea – Saturday 8th February, 10am – 7pm, Bristol Aquarium
To celebrate Bristol Light Festival, the Aquarium will be open later on this date, so visitors can experience the aquarium after dark with its botanical house magically lit with colourful lights. Special UV animal crafts will be available throughout the day, free of charge with an aquarium ticket.
For more information about all events, and to book, visit bristollightfestival.com/events
For the 2025 event, Left Handed Giant has once again created the event’s official beer. This year’s ‘Shining Stars’ is a bright and balanced pale ale, full of citrusy grapefruit and juicy tropical character, from a blend of citra, motueka and el dorado. While visitors check out C-Scales at Castle Bridge, they can grab a can of Shining Stars from Left Handed Giant Brewpub to enjoy the full Bristol Light Festival experience. Shining Stars will also be available at Small Bar, Glassboat and the Royal Navy Volunteer.
Bristol Light Festival’s hub can be found at Queen Square. The perfect place for visitors to meet, regroup and rest, the hub hosts merchandise, including branded beanies, tote bags, light up umbrellas and prints. The hub also houses the information hut, seating and a food market, as well as being the site of two of the festival’s installations – Swing Song and Bristol is Always a Good Idea.
Bristol Light Festival was founded by Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (BID) and is presented in partnership with Redcliffe & Temple BID. The festival’s Artwork Partners are Broadmead BID and Cabot Circus. Visit Bristol, Visit West’s consumer channel for Bristol, is this year’s media partner. The festival is curated by Katherine Jewkes, Creative Director.
For those looking for somewhere to stay in Bristol City Centre during the festival, a list of offers and discounts for some of the best hotels in the area can be found at bristollightfestival.com/accommodation. The festival recommends booking early to avoid disappointment.
Bristol Light Festival recommends travelling as sustainably as possible. Visitors are encouraged to walk or cycle to the festival where possible, or to utilise the many train and bus options available to the city centre. More information about getting to the festival can be found here: bristollightfestival.com/getting-here/
All information about the festival can be found at bristollightfestival.com
Images credit: Andre Pattenden
Plaster are proud to be supporting the amazing Circomedia (Centre for Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre) on their first ever Spring Gala, as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations on Saturday 23rd March at St Paul’s Church in Bristol. The Gala is raising funds to support their life-affirming programmes for children, young people, communities and circus artists.
The evening will feature top class circus performances such as aerial acrobatics, cabaret and much much more, as well as a soul-stirring performance by Ruby Turner (famous for singing at Jools Holland’s Hootenanny for the past 20+ years), accompanied by world-class musician John O’Hara on piano. There will also be auctions with brilliant prizes, as well as the chance to rub shoulders with the great and the good of the Bristol creative scene.
Tickets are just £100 pp and selling fast – included in the ticket price is catering from Kate’s Kitchen, a welcome gin reception from 6 o Clock Gin plus an amazing evening of circus entertainment, with every penny going to support a brilliant cause.
If you’re interested in attending this uniquely Bristolian evening, email austen@weareplaster.com for details.
Illuminating the city at the height of winter, Bristol Light Festival will once again bring a stunning combination of light, sound and colour to the heart of Bristol – and three never-before-seen-in-the-South-West artworks will take centre stage at the next edition
Attracting 250,000 visitors and encouraging a £3.3 million increase in spend to Bristol in 2023, the fourth iteration of the award-winning festival will take place between Friday 2 – Monday 11 February 2024*.
It will welcome two new-to-Bristol installations by Somerset-based partnership, This is Loop, PULSE and Emergence, as well as a second immersive artwork by multidisciplinary art collective, Atelier Sisu, Elysian.
2024’s Bristol Light Festival will also see the welcome return of the festival’s popular favourite Swing Song, produced by Bristol Light Festival and Tired Industries. The artwork will take on a new lease of life for the next edition, bringing immersive play ever further to the forefront for guests.
Welcoming artists from near and far to showcase their masterful light-based installations in its immersive, family-friendly showcase of talent, Bristol Light Festival continues to surprise, delight and shine bright.
New announcements
Bringing not one but two installations to the city centre for Bristol Light Festival is This is Loop, a Somerset-based collaborative partnership between artists Harriet Lumby and Alan Hayes. Known for their large scale, experiential installations, This is Loop are introducing PULSE and Emergence to the winter event, supported by our presenting partner Redcliffe & Temple BID and artwork partner, Broadmead BID.
PULSE, This is Loop
PULSE is an immersive audio-visual installation that explores the perspectives of visual and auditory perception, welcoming visitors to step inside enormous rings of light made up of more that 14,000 individual LEDs as they travel through the sequence. This is Loop collaborated with audio artist Dan Bibby aka ’Weatherbrow’ to create the custom track for PULSE. The main show is a five minute high intensity, tightly choreographed and fast paced audio visual journey and is best viewed from start to finish. Accompanying this is a 20 minute long piece with a slower, more ambient feel which can be joined at any point.
Emergence, This is Loop
Emergence is an award-winning audio-visual art installation, created as a place of contemplation amongst the chaos of the outside world. The sculpture is a huge, mirrored structure that is completely reflective and designed to provide audiences with a new perspective of a once-familiar space. Each section is carefully constructed to create an optical illusion inside the unit creating a complete sphere of light when viewed from close by that morphs into a giant grid of light when viewed from a short distance. This enables distinct experiences for the viewer which range from collective to intimate depending on location
Harriet Lumby and Alan Hayes said:
“We’re so excited to be a part of Bristol Light Festival for 2024. We love nothing more than seeing our work out in the world, and watching people interact with and learn from our installations. The art we create is about bringing playful sculptures to audiences, to engulf them in a visual experience like no other. PULSE and Emergence are two very different installations, but both are designed to change the way audiences experience light and the space around them, and we can’t wait to see the reactions from the people of Bristol.”
Elysian by Atelier Sis
Inspired by the ever-changing nature of the world, Elysian immerses guests within illuminated arches to both walk through and under, thanks to our artwork partner Cabot Circus. Inflatable in nature, the work is described as being “at the precipice of change” by the artist. The work is that of award-winning Sydney-based art practice Atelier Sisu. Led by Peruvian sculptor and industrial designer Renzo B. Larriviere and architectural designer and artist Zara Pasfield, the work is inspired by the intertwining of art and architecture, better known as art-chitecture.
Renzo B. Larriviere and Zara Pasfield said:
“Elysian is a temporary public art-chitecture piece that exists as a space of reflection, immersion and joy for its audience. The name of the installation is an adjective meaning ‘beautiful or creative, divinely inspired.’ Elysian explores the movement of colour as it interacts with light, and the texture of the artwork allows the material to reflect both natural and artificial light in a unique and eye-catching way. The artwork is accompanied by a soundscape, making the space a fully immersive experience for the audience. We’re very proud to be bringing this work to Bristol Light Festival in February.”
Swing Song, based on a concept by Bristol Light Festival and brought to life by Tired Industries
Swing Song has been a standout installation at Bristol Light Festival in previous editions. A series of six swings, the childhood favourite artwork is set to music produced especially for the festival, which plays as the audience swings back and forth. One swing controls the bassline, another controls the melody, and a third controls drums and percussion.
Small movements produce simple tunes, but as users swing higher and higher, the tracks evolve into more complex melodies, giving users control over the song they produce as they swing the night away. Surrounding the installation this time around will be various interactive games, so audiences both young and young at heart will be able to enjoy an increasingly more playful environment.
Jon Panniers of Tired Industries said:
“The reception of the artwork at the 2023 edition of Bristol Light Festival was amazing and people seemed to really gain a sense of childlike wonder from the piece. Things will be done slightly differently this year, and we can’t wait to see how the people of Bristol respond to the third iteration of Swing Song, as the additional elements we’ve added are set to bring even more joy to families visiting the festival.”
Bristol Light Festival coincides with the Winter Lights project, which has seen new street lights added across the city for the festive season. These will stay illuminated from 11am to midnight each night throughout January, February and March. New winter tree lights have also been introduced in locations around the city which will be lit daily.
Katherine Jewkes, Creative Director of Bristol Light Festival, said:
“We are absolutely over the moon to have some many incredible artists involved with our next edition. This programme is starting to feel really special and is reflective of Bristol’s creative spirit. Each year our aim is to bring new and show-stopping artworks to Bristol, creating spaces for people to play, explore and have new experiences. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to the Bristol Light Festival and once again fill the city with colour and light.”
Vicky Lee, Head of Bristol City Centre BID, said:
“Last year’s event saw a quarter of a million people visit Bristol city centre and enjoy the festival. It drove both footfall and spend to the city during a predominantly quiet time of year. The event is a real opportunity to support local businesses and enjoy Bristol and all its wonderful retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. Celebrating the creative industries in the city through the Bristol Light Festival platform is incredibly important to us – and the financial and artistic boost the event gives Bristol is phenomenal. We can’t wait for the fourth iteration of such an incredible city-wide event.”
Steve Bluff, Head of Redcliffe & Temple BID, said:
“We’re really proud to be a partner of Bristol Light Festival. This is such a wonderful free event that provides Bristol with a real opportunity to showcase incredible local as well as international talent, and to welcome visitors from near and far to see the city in a whole new light.”
Bristol Light Festival is a free event, and will run from the 2 – 11 February 2024. An award-winning festival, guests travelling from further afield can bolster their visit with an overnight stay in one of the city centre’s award-winning hotels, enjoying all that Bristol has to offer.
Many hotels in the area are offering discounted rates for those visiting, including The Bristol Hotel, Clayton Hotel, Doubletree by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Leonardo Hotel, Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, The Berkeley Square Hotel and Bristol Harbour Hotel. Last year’s edition saw more than two thirds of all attendees take part in other activities during their visit to the festival, including eating and drinking, shopping and other city centre entertainment – with 20% of those visiting coming to Bristol specifically for the event. For more information on booking your discounted accommodation, head to www.bristollightfestival.org/accommodation
Bristol Light Festival was founded by Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (BID) and is presented in partnership with Redcliffe & Temple BID. The festival’s Artwork Partners are Broadmead BID and Cabot Circus. Visit Bristol, Visit West’s consumer channel for Bristol, is this year’s media partner. The festival is curated by Katherine Jewkes, Creative Director. This year, a partnership with Bristol’s Left Handed Giant see’s the local brewery providing the official festival beer for the event.
The iconic Bristol Harbour Festival will return between Friday 19th – Sunday 21st July 2024 – and organisers are keen to hear from talented locals who want to take centre stage at both well-known as well as new-for-2024 feature areas in the unique setting of the city’s harbour.
Expression of Interest applications for the maritime festival’s next edition are now open here, and the festival’s new curators are calling for singers, performers, organisations, charities, and other crowd and community-wowing initiatives to submit their applications to perform before the deadline on Wednesday 31st January 2024.
Bristol Harbour Festival is one of the UK’s biggest free-to-attend events, attracting around 250,000 people across the long weekend in what is a unique opportunity to showcase the city’s rich maritime, musical and cultural heritage. Delivered by Bristol City Council, this year will also see two of the city’s Business Improvement Districts, Bristol City Centre BID and Redcliffe & Temple BID, become key stakeholders in the event – bringing the business community to the heart of the festival.
For 2024, Bristol Harbour Festival will be curated, produced and delivered by international events production agency, Proud Events, in partnership with immersive theatre and events company, Swans Events. The client roster of the two organisations includes UK Black Pride, The Cambridge Club, Wychwood Festival, Sheffield Food Festival, Festival of the Sea Grimsby and Lightopia Festival.
An on-the-ground steering group has been brought together, to assist in curating a festival that represents both local ethos and talent as well as international best practice in event operations and production. Local organisations on board include cultural icons Bristol Old Vic, Watershed, Bristol Pride, ACH Refugee Integration Services Provider and Bristol Community Ferry Boats Ltd. amongst many more, in order to represent the diverse communities and businesses that Bristol is proud to play home to.
The steering group will meet regularly in the lead up to the Bristol Harbour Festival to agree on the many facets of the event and ensure neighbourhoods, groups and districts across the city are represented throughout the three-day festival.
The wide-spread stages that are synonymous with the Bristol Harbour Festival will continue to include stellar acts spanning the genres of music, circus, theatre, on the water and more. New additions and areas are set to join the line-up for 2024, with more information yet to be revealed.
Previous editions of the Bristol Harbour Festival have seen more than 80% of the acts and entertainment on offer coming through the Expression of Interest application form. As such, applications are open to everyone and anyone looking to share their talent.
Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, said:
“Bristol’s Harbour Festival is a key date in our city’s calendar, and an essential platform for aspiring local artists and talent to perform in front of huge audiences. We are proud that we have continued to keep the city’s largest festival, which is a fantastic opportunity to showcase Bristol’s diverse creativity and talent, as a free event for all. We can look forward to celebrating together and bringing another brilliant free festival to Bristol this summer.”
Harry Feigen, Managing Director at Proud Events, said:
“It’s fantastic to be bringing the iconic Bristol Harbour Festival to life in collaboration with an array of Bristol’s leading institutions. Partnering with Bristol City Council, Bristol City Centre BID, Redcliffe & Temple BID and a host of stakeholders from key cultural organisations in the city, the 2024 Bristol Harbour Festival will aim to represent the diverse communities and initiatives that live and operate in Bristol. The local steering group will provide unrivalled insight into the grassroots communities here – and we are keen to use the iconic platform of the festival to celebrate as many as possible.”
For those wanting to perform and join in the city’s 2024 celebrations, they should head to the Bristol Harbour Festival website and complete the Expression of Interest form before Wednesday 31st January 2024. Organisers are hoping to attract the newest and coolest into the festival from all corners of the city.
Applications for boat owners and visiting vessels who wish to attend this year’s festival will soon go live, as will applications for trading at the festival. More information can be found on the Bristol Harbour Festival website.
To keep up to date with all Harbour Festival news and updates, follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or visit the website.
Europe’s largest live street art festival Upfest calls out for support towards raising £250,000 to bring the much-loved event back to Bristol for spring 2024.
Following a fallow year, the team behind Upfest is launching its annual crowdfunding campaign, rallying support from art lovers, the Bristol community and festival fans alike. The event will need to raise £250,000 to stage the 16th edition in 2024.
Since its debut in 2008, Upfest has remained free and brings over 50,000 visitors to each edition. Attracting visitors from Bristol and beyond, the festival hosts local, national and international street artists of all levels who each apply for a space to paint at the two day festival weekend.
Steve Hayles, Festival Co-Founder explains;
“We have moved Upfest to a bi-annual model and continue to still be volunteer-led with hundreds of people donating time in the lead up and during the event. We are facing increasing costs, just like all large-scale events, and we’ve never needed support from the community more to keep Upfest going. The crowdfunder goes to pay for infrastructure, safety, security and entertainment as well as artist materials, scissor lifts and loads of other elements which it takes to stage a festival of this size. Each year we’re blown away by the love and support we get from the community, and we appreciate every single contribution.”
Anyone who donates to the festival crowdfunder will be able to give to specific areas of the festival operation, such as providing artists with spray paint or contributing to the cost of keeping the festival site clean both during and after the event.
In addition to the crowdfunding, Upfest has joined Patreon; an online platform which allows supporters to regularly give to the festival. This will feature exclusive content and Patreon member benefits at the festival as well as through the year for the festival’s superfans.
Upfest has hosted Bristol street art legends, Inkie, Jody, Lucas Antics, Andy Council, HazardOne and more throughout its 15 years, as well as international artists such as Insane51, Kashnik and L7M. The festival also provides a huge platform for up and coming artists to showcase their talents and will also once again raise money for The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) which offers aid and assistance for children growing up in families affected by alcoholism.
To donate towards bringing Upfest 2024 to life please visit: https://www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/make-upfest24-happen. To join their Patreon group visit: https://www.patreon.com/Upfest. To keep up to date with all things Upfest, visit the festivals website and follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
Launching today, SOL-ART Visions will see a series of artworks on display at the Tobacco Factory Cafe Bar from 17th – 31st July to showcase the reimagining of Bristol for the renewable energy transition.
The exhibition features conceptual artworks envisioning solar facades, by acclaimed artists AcerOne, Andy Council, Bex Glover, Dave Bain and Elaine Carr. The artworks were developed through a number of creative co-design workshops hosted by Upfest as part of the UWE Bristol project Towards Solar Facades as Participatory Public Art.
The project is a partnership between UWE Bristol, street art specialists Upfest, and the pioneering manufacturer of building integrated photovoltaic solutions BIPVco. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), under the Design Accelerator scheme (Grant Ref: AH/X003574/1). The project lead is Dr Eleonora Nicoletti from UWE Bristol (the University of the West of England).
The exhibition is the result of a series of events to co-create with the Bristol community visual concepts for integrating photovoltaics into facades of existing buildings in the Bedminster area. The artworks reflect thoughts from Bristol residents, architects and other built environment specialists, considering possibilities for integrating solar photovoltaic technology into building facades, which would in turn generate electrical energy from sunlight. Steve Hayles, co-founder of Upfest explains:
“Being able to give the local community the chance to come and see how the neighbourhood they’re living in could potentially be transformed is something we are all excited about. The public has a great opportunity to give feedback to artists to help shape and improve their surroundings.
“We hope the renewable energy concept of the designs is well-received by residents and Bedminster can be used as a launching pad for similar projects throughout the world – there’s no better place to start!”
Eleonora Nicoletti, the project lead, adds:
“If we think of integrating photovoltaic technology more into buildings to decarbonise the power grid, we need to engage the local community early on in reimagining their urban environment. With such a strong presence of street art in Bristol, we are looking forward to seeing which possible directions driven by the local community building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technology may take in the city.”
Exhibition visitors from the broader Bristol community will be invited to join the conversation and express their views on the displayed work via an online questionnaire, to help shape the future direction of this progressive project. For further information follow Upfest’s social media channels Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Bristol Light Festival invites artists to register interest to showcase their work to more than 250,000 visitors when it returns from 2nd to 11th February 2024. Those interested should register their interest here: https://bristollightfestival.org/call-for-artists/
Offering local, national and international artists a platform to showcase the best in installation art, the Bristol Light Festival has a reputation for show-stopping immersive experiences at iconic locations across the city.
The 2024 edition will return across 10 days and two weekends, offering a captivating journey through the city illuminated by stunning light installations, accompanied by shopping, dining and exploring.
Bristol Light Festival celebrates artistic freedom and experimentation, providing a platform for artists to push boundaries, think outside the box, and breathe life into groundbreaking ideas. The festival is looking for light artists, painters, sculptors, architects, performers, or other artistic disciplines, to bring a unique perspective and submit visionary concepts for the 2024 edition. Students and institutions are also invited to apply to collaborate with the festival curation team. Those interested should register their interest here: https://bristollightfestival.org/call-for-artists/
Katherine Jewkes, Creative Director at Bristol Light Festival, said:
“At Bristol Light Festival we love to support artists and makers from all disciplines who are excited to bring their playful and radical ideas to light. We’re looking for installations that will challenge our audiences and that will change the way our community both remembers and responds to our city spaces. Some of my favourite past commissions have come through previous open calls. With the city as our playground, I can’t wait to see what ideas are presented as part of this call out process.”
Vicky Lee, Head of Bristol City Centre BID, explains:
“This year’s event delivered a spectacle at every turn – and Bristol was alight with people from near and far and of all ages keen to see the festival. Next year is set to be just as – if not even more – special. Working with the creative industries in the city – and providing them with a platform to showcase their work to local and national audiences – not only supports our beloved cultural scene in Bristol but in turn supports our city’s high street businesses. Bristol Light Festival has delivered significant additional economic benefit year on year, with the most recent edition encouraging a 250,000 footfall boom and additional spend in city centre businesses of a staggering £3.3 million.”
Gemma Mills, one-half of the light artist duo Illumaphonium, presented Halo and Continuum at Bristol Light Festival in 2023. She explains:
“Through Bristol Light Festival we had the opportunity to install Continuum in the magnificent Temple Church. Teaming such an incredibly beautiful site with such a keen-to-engage audience was quite simply magical. Since this show we have had multiple bookings from all over the world to put this piece of art in similarly exquisite historical and architectural spaces. This is no doubt as a direct result of our collaboration with English Heritage and Bristol Light Festival.”
“Bristol is without doubt one of the most creative and fun places to be, it’s often where we come when we seek inspiration and to reconnect with why we make the art we do in the first place. As artists, we strive to reconnect people with the childhood curiosities that are so often lost in adulthood. We facilitate togetherness and encourage play, and in our experience, Bristol needs very little encouragement! A joy of a city to work within.”
The festival encourages applications that prioritise environmental sustainability and use green energy solutions in their design, embody best practices in their execution, explore the potential for artwork reuse and foster novel and ambitious artistic ideas.
The 2024 edition of Bristol Light Festival is celebrating a new partnership with colleagues at the Redcliffe & Temple BID as they become our presenting partners after two successful years of artwork partner sponsorship.
Steve Bluff, Head of Redcliffe & Temple BID explains;
“We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Bristol Light Festival team and colleagues at the Bristol City Centre BID exploring opportunities to further extend the festival within our area – especially as it plays host to both new and ancient architecture. After the success of the stunning interactive art installations Continuum at Temple Church, BEAM on Castle Bridge and Ophelia in St Mary Redcliffe Church, we’re excited to see what the Bristol Light Festival artists will create for us this year to get residents and visitors exploring the area and supporting our businesses along the way”.
Artists with a relationship with Bristol who express interest will be prioritised. The submission deadline is midnight on Friday 28th July 2023, with the shortlisting deadline set for August 18th, and conversations with the selected artists will commence on August 25th. Shortlisted artists will be invited to visit the festival site and engage in pre-production meetings from September to November, leading up to the grand opening of Bristol Light Festival from February 2nd to 11th, 2024.
Studio McGuire was chosen as an artist for the 2023 edition of the event. Its stunning Ophelia light installation was a showstopper – depicting a serene, life-size hologram of Ophelia, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Kristin’s ‘Sirens’ holographic mermaid projection also transformed Bristol’s iconic harbour into a mythical underworld at the 2023 festival.
Talking about the experience, the artist said: “It was fantastic to be selected to exhibit at Bristol Light Festival. Having our installation projected in St Mary Redcliffe Church was so special and a real career highlight. The planning and organising stages were very smooth and the event itself had a phenomenal turnout in terms of attendance.
“Since exhibiting at Bristol Light Festival, we’ve had other cathedrals get in touch to enquire about hosting the hologram and some of our other flagship works, which is so encouraging to see.”
The review process for expressions of interest will be conducted by the Bristol Light Festival team, including Creative Director Katherine Jewkes.
*This event is subject to licensing and site permissions approval.
Award-winning art collective Squidsoup reveals innovative artworks ahead of immersive exhibition
Introducing “Beyond Submergence”, a landmark art exhibition presented by award-winning art collective, Squidsoup. Inviting visitors to experience awe-inspiring installations of light and sound as they step into Propyard starting July 1st.
The exhibition will feature a retrospective of Squidsoup’s acclaimed light installations on a huge scale, curated into a journey through the huge industrial space of Propyard.
Masterful in their use of light, space, sound, scale, movement and technology, Squidsoup creates immersive experiences that invite an emotional response from guests.
The spectacle starts with Granularities, a series of wall art that use Musou Black, a paint that absorbs up to 99.4% of all reflected light, giving an almost perfect black. This creates a flat darkness set against a backdrop of bright white to create a hypnotic juxtaposition of absorption and reflection.
A miniature spectacle, Aurora uses the lightest known solid Aerogel, which was developed by NASA to collect space dust. This other-worldly exhibit is beguiling and beautiful, embodying both digital and physical material, evoking images of icebergs or the Northern Lights.
Collective Isolation will also welcome visitors, outside the main exhibition space, where an array of sound and light will give them a moment to collect their thoughts and a hint at what is to come in the exhibition.
As you step into the darkness of the main exhibition, visitors are greeted by Circular Echoes. This circular form is a symbol of completeness and wholeness. An endless line with no beginning or end; is it the journey itself, a representation of freedom, or is it the border across which we cannot travel, the fence that surrounds us?
Wave consists of some five hundred individual suspended orbs. These points of presence are brought to life through light and sound, collectively creating a resonant and dynamic audiovisual experience. This is a sustaining space within which each orb resonates in changing harmonies to create an enveloping and entrancing physical presence.
Get ready to be amazed and pushed off balance by Phase Shifter, an immense kinetic, sculptural sound and light composition. The piece is an ever-shifting audio-visual landscape defined by the interplay of a line of 16 moving sound and light sources, together creating an immersive and transcendent dynamic soundscape.
Squidsoup’s famous Submergence is set in a huge industrial setting and invites you to walk through and experience it from all angles. This hybrid environment is where virtual and physical worlds coincide – a fully immersive sensory experience.
The exhibition will feature the largest installation of Squidsoup’s new Sola exhibit consisting of a wall of fresnel lenses and ultra-bright LEDs that simulates the distant but all-powerful sun. Controlled clouds along with a heavy drone will roll into view creating a feeling of flying, power and awe.
This unique experience is the ultimate day out for families and art fans alike. Beyond Submergence’s affordable ticket prices starting at £15 per adult and £35 for a family keeps this summer activity accessible to all those who wish to experience the exhibition and immerse in its magic. Student and OAP discounts will also be launched for the Summer. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://beyondsubmergence.com/
The exhibition will also feature a number of wellness experiences hosted at Propyard, alongside the spectacular exhibits, making the experience the first of its kind in the world. These classes include yoga, breathwork, pilates and more with some of the UK’s best wellness mentors.
Plaster Creative Communications, Upfest and Bristol City Centre BID won gold at the FMBE Awards 2021 for the #BristolTogether campaign, which saw 375 hearts painted across the city’s parks as a response to the reopening of the city centre in Summer 2020.
Artists painted Queen Square to look spectacular from aerial drone footage. These, and hearts in two other huge green spaces, were distanced by 2m to meet guidelines. The campaign generated over 605million views of the work globally and making Bristol an icon for positivity during the pandemic. The picture was selected as one of BBC New’s Pictures of 2020 in its annual round-up and featured internationally on CNN and NBC. Media requests came from as far away as Russia and Columbia.
The team also brokered a collaboration with the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, painting a 128 metre heart at Ashton Court. Marking what would have been the opening of the event, this enabled 20 hot air balloons to take off in heart formation.
A trail of hearts at Cabot Circus soon followed, with the creation of rainbow hearts, which promoted visiting the seven main retail arteries of the centre. This involved complex collaboration with Bristol City Council’s Highways Team as well as extensive surface testing to ensure it could be executed.
As a tier 2 Christmas approached, Plaster and the Bristol City Centre BID undertook the largest collaboration of the campaign, working with 73 businesses to execute #BristolAdventures. The campaign’s main partner was SLX, who donated unused lighting equipment and paid their out of work technicians to create a month-long light installation on the city’s most iconic buildings, in collaboration with a massive group of BID levy payers
The campaign exceeded every projection of reach, engagement, social impact and footfall. Crucially it brought together businesses, communities and creatives to work for a common goal, with engagement and collaboration at levels never seen before.
Plaster Creative Communications and Bristol City Council have joined forces to launch Where’s it to?, an invitation to Bristolians to explore their local high streets and get to know the traders behind the businesses.
Bristol’s high streets are some of the most diverse, independent and original in the world and Where’s it to? invites Bristol communities to get to know their local shops and hospitality establishments and the characters who run them.
15 high streets across the city will be profiled, highlighting numerous traders on each street, which span from stores passed through generations of a family, through to brand new openings inspired by the pandemic.
Each week, a new street will be added, with East Street in Bedminster, the Old City and Church Road in Redfield launched this week. A local guide invites you to explore their high street through a short documentary film, capturing this moment in time as the city reopens.
Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees explains;
“This campaign celebrates the unique character of each Bristol high street, while recognising the contribution to the city as a whole. After a challenging year, we want to promote our shopkeepers, restaurateurs and businesses, as they have been critical to morale during the pandemic.
“Many of us have been shopping more on our local high streets and we really want to encourage more of this as we begin to recover from the pandemic. We are inviting Bristolians to shop locally, stay safe and take care of each other.”
East Street’s film features East Street Fruit Market, VX, The Revival Market, The Bristol Loaf and Brightbow Workspace, with some hidden historical gems that you can find footsteps from the main retail street.
Sarah Morrison, Project lead explains;
“Where’s it to? was selected as the name of the campaign to reflect our city’s language and in collaboration with a huge range of traders from across the 15 high streets. It’s our unique way of demonstrating where something is to a visitor, and perfectly reflects this guide to hidden gems on our high streets.”
Where’s it to? was created by Bristol City Council and delivered through the Reopening High Streets Safely Fund* to support the safe reopening and recovery of the High Streets following COVID-19 restrictions. The 15 High Streets were selected to give a flavour of the diversity and types of centres across the city.
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