Light show returns to celebrate city's culture

Beth Cruse & Claire Carter
BBC News, West of England
Bristol Light Festival returns

A beating heart, 1,000 flamingos and a giant swing are just some of the installations set to brighten up a city.

Bristol Light Festival, which welcomed 275,000 visitors in 2024, returns on Friday and will run until 9 February.

It will include ten installations at different locations across the city, such as College Green, Broadmead and the Harbourside.

An immersive laser experience which will take over an empty shop at Cabot Circus and celebrate Bristol's "drum and bass legacy" will also be on show.

Bristol Light Festival A flock of animated purple light-up flamingos are pictured in the darkBristol Light Festival
Ten installations will brighten up Bristol

"We try and find artworks that fit into interesting locations across the city," creative director Katherine Jewkes told BBC Radio Bristol.

"We started out as a weekend festival and now we run for ten days.

"We're also across more sites now, originally we were just in the city centre... and now we're also in Redcliffe, Temple and Cabot Circus."

Bristol Light Festival was founded by the Bristol city centre Business Improvement District (BID) and is being run in partnership with the Redcliffe & Temple BID.

The artists will include Air Giants, Illumaphonium and Bruce Munro, who all have connections to Bristol.

Bruce Munro's Ramandu's Table will showcase nature through an installation of a flock of 1,000 white flamingos.

"There's locations we know we want to be in because they're so beautiful, like Temple Church," Ms Jewkes added.

"For that one we've got a piece called Parallels which is this amazing kind of laser sculpture by Architecture Social Club that is going to look phenomenal in that site, because it's that juxtaposition between modern tech lasers and a really historical venue."

Bristol Light Festival Strings of blue lights are seen falling from a metal installation and people below are taking picturesBristol Light Festival
The free festival runs for ten days

Ms Jewkes said the event, which is free, is a celebration of Bristol's music culture.

"We've got a piece called Anthems Volume One which is in collaboration with Run Collective and an artist called Marcus Lyall, who is known for doing the lighting design for Chemical Brothers, Metallica and The Rolling Stones.

"That came very much from us wanting to celebrate Bristol's drum and bass scene."

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