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Friday, 15 May
Rural Hub Towns
International Day of Light
Staff
Each year, on May 16th, all around the world, light is celebrated - from scientific advancement, cultural significance, educational and environmental awareness to artistic expression, light plays a huge role in the world we live in today, maybe more than we realise!
In the new year, during a big, Nordic freeze, our very own Jess Pinson from the Rural Hub Towns team, was given the opportunity to travel to Helsinki for their annual light festival - Lux. The trip, funded by the Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice grant, provided much learning, networking and inspiration for our Rural Hub Towns project. Lux gives locals access to high quality art, encouraging people of all ages to get creative where they live and celebrate their unique stories and shared heritage; it creates valuable memories for the community, something mirrored in the work that Rural Hub Towns do! Jess had a fantastic trip and was keen to share her experience and reflect on her time in Helsinki.
At Lux, I was thinking about how a place known for its cold, dark and long winters has consistently been voted the happiest place to live. What could we learn for our rural communities about how art can improve quality of life, particularly during our dreary seasons?
Each day I took part in a different activity organised by the festival’s professional programme, and in the evenings, I wandered through the streets seeing every installation. There was a symposium event with speakers from local authorities, other festivals, artists and organisers. A bus tour of light art outside the city centre to understand different impacts of cultural policy, with stops at community venues in the suburbs. Also, a walking tour of galleries to understand how the festival works year-round to support the cultural economy and develop artists.
A highlight was exploring a light installation on cranes in Helsinki Shipyard, where they make most of the world’s ice breakers. In my hard hat and high vis vest, walking carefully on the icy ground in the black night, buffeted by a brutal Baltic wind rushing off the frozen sea, I listened to a local resident explain how she lived near the shipyard and saw the cranes from her window every day. The festival organisers had worked with her as an artist to create a light installation for the festival, exploring the past and future of the important site. A fantastic piece of work for her career, but also a wonderful perspective for the visitors, and it was seen by 450,000 people from across the water from the shipyard. Only a handful of people got to see it up close and with the artist. What a privilege!
The trip was full of inspiration. Event organisers from Finland, Sweden, Germany and Italy shared their great experience of making work with and for communities. I saw beautiful art sited in intriguing ways. Chatted with local authorities about designing light and dark in healthy communities. Thought about how we can use public space differently, theatrically and playfully. Considered how art interventions can create permanent shifts in how we see places because of the memories we make. At each artwork I stopped a little longer to watch how people interacted with the space and art, watched their faces and listened (where I could understand the language!) to what they had to say. It was so much fun to see the works as a visitor with my side-missions of learning and developing my work.
I’m hugely grateful to the Lux team for their welcome, to Arts Council for the opportunity, and to Live & Local for the purposeful, exciting, and ambitious work we do.
Special thanks to Jess for this blog.
For more information on International Day of Light, click here.
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