Illuminate, a spectacular light festival that connects the Mayflower 400 destinations across the UK and internationally, returns to the historic Royal William Yard for four days in November 2018.
The festival offers an immersive experience, with projections and light installations set out across the Yard, live performances and opportunities for audiences to interact with the works.
Illuminate 2018 features international artists including Xavi Bové and Thomas Voillaume. Performed live Bové’s piece, ‘Visual Songs’ allows visitors to conduct virtual brushes to create their own personalised artwork, which they can print and take home with them afterwards. Voillaume will bring ‘Human’, a sculpture of a humanoid form that light and video is projected onto. The light gives the sculpture emotions and reveals its history, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination.
Also new is the use of water screen technology, as artists experiment with projecting onto the sea as well as land. Other artists creating installations include Mark Parry, Jamie Knight, 1000 Errors, Josh Small and Effervescent, as well as University of Plymouth graduates Juliet Middleton-Batts and Paige Alexander.
Phil Power, Associate Professor in BA (Hons) Fine Art is exhibiting his piece involving the iconic grey Stothert and Pitt’s cranes at the Yard, alongside three current fine art students at the festival. While Associate Lecturer in Media Arts Rachael Allain’s piece, ‘Epipelagic Drifters’, highlights the importance of plankton for the wellbeing of the environment, and the impact of marine plastic on the oceans. It features voice-overs from leading marine researchers at the University.
Illuminate is free to attend and there are plenty of interactive workshops to get involved in, both during and in the lead-up to the festival. For more details visit the University website.