Light The City

Alex Nicholson-Evans, Festival Director

A key pillar of this festival has always been legacy - beyond the festival itself, I have always wanted us to play a role in progressively lighting the city over time.

The response to our inaugural programme announcement has been fantastic and there has been a lot of excitement about all elements of Birmingham Light Festival; the temporary artworks have been getting a lot of attention, tickets for the events are selling fast and there has been a lot of love for the legacy commissions. 

A key pillar of this festival has always been legacy - beyond the festival itself, I have always wanted us to play a role in progressively lighting the city over time. Light art sparks such joy and curiosity, and ‘Our Beating Heart’ test installation showed a positive impact on perception of safety too. Our legacy work becomes even more important with rumours circulating of the city council’s intention to dim street lights as a cost saving measure.

For year one of the festival, with thanks to funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, we had £50,000 to dedicate to launching our legacy programme. We had much less time than we would have liked but, despite the constraints, we were able to find three ambitious partners to begin this journey with us. We then worked with them on an open call to find the committed expert suppliers and artists they needed in order to create our first three legacy artworks. These artworks will stay in situ after the festival and will be maintained by the partner organisations:

Ideas Happen Here 

Legal & General // Rough Diamond // Taylex // RAWLS

Alright Bab

Colmore BID // BrumBox // Taylex

Roof of Stars

Southside // Birmingham Hippodrome / Lite Ltd

You can read more about these artworks here: https://www.birminghamlightfestival.co.uk/artwork

Beyond the legacy works, there are many other partners and parties working hard to bring light to the streets of the city and I wanted to take a moment to shine a spotlight on those too.

You can’t miss the fantastic work Central BID have done on lighting the trees along New Street. The lights will be twinkling and the walls of New Street will be glowing pink for the festival.

The folks at Paradise have lightened and brightened the route between Chamberlain Square and Centenary Square, those lights will also be glowing pink from 19 - 22 February in celebration of Birmingham Light Festival. PWC are also joining the mission and their building will bit lit up in pink too!

We are all used to seeing the icon of our city, Birmingham Library, changing colour at night in celebration of lots of different calendar dates and celebrations, Light Festival will be no different, you can expect the Library to glow blue (inspired by the Night Badminton Installation) and red (inspired by the Silent Disco X Floor is LAVA installation) for the duration of the festival.

I have a particular soft spot for ‘Certain Kind of Light’ an event brought to you by JQ Common Room, taking place for Birmingham Light Festival. Residents and businesses in the JQ are coming together to light their window - have a read about that here: https://www.birminghamlightfestival.co.uk/certain-kind-of-light-thurs 

And finally, whilst Birmingham Light Festival is a city centre project (my brief as City Curator is exclusively the city centre) there are partners across the city making strides when it comes to better lighting our urban spaces. Our friends at Enjoy Kings Heath have invested in an improved lighting scheme for their high street and they will be turning their tree lights pink from 19 - 22 February in celebration of the festival.

If you’re reading this as an organisation with access to light systems across streetscapes in Birmingham (BIDs this is probably one for you!) then please consider this an invitation to join the celebration. Please do drop us an email if you do decide to light the city differently for Birmingham Light Festival so we can share that news too!

Before I sign off, a wholehearted thanks to everyone working hard right now on all things Light Festival, 19 - 22 February is just around the corner…