Free light festival shines hopeful optimism across Media City

Free light festival, Lightwaves returns for a 12th year, lighting up the nights of Salford Quays and Media City with 12 new spectacular light art installations focused on themes of optimism, positivity and togetherness.

This year there are even more ways for visitors to get involved, from playful interactivity to photo walks. Isabelle Fallows talks to Rachel Candler, Head of Programmes for organisers Quays Culture, to find out more:

Q: First of all, can you give us a general overview about the event – what can people expect when they’re there?

Rachel: “It’s going to be a trail of 12 colourful light art installations, it’s basically going to inspire the visitors to explore Salford Quays and Media City by night time. It’s completely free to attend. The 12 artworks – many of which are going to be interactive this year – they use light music and digital technologies to inspire people to dance, play and perform.

“The artworks vary in their own themes from celebrating nostalgia, with a seaside arcade to highlighting climate change and our connection to the natural world. So, it’s a real breadth of topics for everyone to engage with.

“We also offer tours, there are two public tours which are at 6pm on the Saturday and the Sunday. There’s also a British Sign Language (BSL) tour and an audio described tour which is at 5pm on the Sunday. For the first time, Simon Buckley, is doing a photo walk called, ‘Not Quite Light’. A photo walk is a first for Lightwaves and people can sign up to come do that”.

Q: So, for this year, what do you think will be the highlight of the light festival? Could you tell me a little bit about the installations and the artists?

Rachel: “I think they’re all really high quality and they all offer something different and unique. I’m really looking forward to seeing visitors dancing on the red bridge, and I’m really looking forward to ‘The Relic of Merchwood Forest’ watching this beautiful, animated piece come to life about the life of a fern.

“‘External ensemble’, which is by ONYVA! Studios is a projected piece and it’s a woman playing a cello, but it creates a quartet. So, there’s four separate screens and you’ll see her four times play in the quartet as she’s playing all the different parts, and that with the background of the water and everything I think will look really spectacular.

“We have an artwork in the University of Salford and this year an artist called Emma Nuttall has created an artwork called ‘Constellations of Us’. This is about engaging the audience so they can interact with the artwork, but it’s all about the constellations of the sky. The students have responded to this artwork and there’s a really lovely exhibition of a variety of different artworks and a chance for the audience to go in somewhere and keep warm and brace yourself to come back out again for the other artwork. I do think what is really different this year is that there’s a lot of new pieces and there’s a lot of interaction and colour and play, and I think that really is what will show us a slight difference for the festival this year. It’s got a different kind of angle and I think that would be really nice. The Makers Markets are also coming to join us every day, so they’ll be open from 4pm until 9pm on each night that we’re there”.

Q: The light festivals are focused on creativity and artistic passion. How do you think that the artists expressed this within their work?

Rachel: “Every work is different, and we don’t tend to repeat our artworks from previous years so everyone gets a chance to look at something new and explore something new. The artists like to communicate with their work, and I suppose I would encourage the people to read each piece. Often the artists themselves, will be around as well so they’re also happy to take advantage of what they want to dig into deeper. So, there’s a chance for the community to engage by reading, looking, thinking about what the artist wants to say and actually perhaps speaking to them or speaking to a coordinator, which is a really lovely opportunity for the audience.

“I think light festivals are cold and I think it’s about bringing a lot of colours, it’s very colourful and interactive. So, they want they want their audiences to enjoy their evening, but also some have really important messages, like the ‘Happy as the Day Is Long’, is on the big Red Bridge in Salford Quays, so that gives the audience a chance to dance with the artwork”.

Q: It’s the 12th year of Lightwaves, how do you think that the event has changed since the beginning to how it is now? How do you think it’s developed over those 12 years?

Rachel: “We’ve grown in number of artworks – each year we go up and down between 12 and 15 or 16 artworks, so it varies each year. I think it’s developed by the sense that we’re engaging audiences in a different way, that they get to be playful. About five or six of the 12 artworks are all interactive, so there’s so many different things for the audience to do. Whereas I suppose at the beginning, light art, there’s a lot of watching certain things and looking at artwork but this interactivity really engages the audience.

“We’ve got a work called ‘Stitching Light’, which is a community driven piece. We’ve worked with a local Bangladeshi community to create this piece. Not just from Salford, also from a long running group, we’re part of ‘Light Up the North Network’. So, that’s about 15 light festivals all coming together to deal with their own expertise. It’s a co-commission so we’re working with some groups from Leeds, and then this year we’re all coming together. So, all the different community groups are coming together, there’s lots of work with the community, I think that has developed over the 12 years too”.

Q: So, would you say community is at the centre of the artists’ collaborations?

Rachel: “It is for some of them, I think it really varies. So, the artworks for ‘Our Town’ by Elisa Artesero and her piece is commissioned with the Lowry and the National Lottery Heritage Fund and it’s part of the Lowry’s 25th birthday, and it’s using L S Lowry’s painting ‘Our Town‘ as an inspiration, but it engages people, they kind of move in front of the piece, they can engage with the artwork, and then they can also hear the stories of the local community. So, we engage the community in a in a very different way with different artworks”.

Q: Finally, would you just be able to tell me anything about the partnerships, the funding side of it?

Rachel: “So Lightwaves is funded by the Arts Council England. It’s a grant that comes through the Salford City Council as part of the National Lottery Project Grants program. Quay’s Culture is gratefully funded by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority through their culture fund programme. Lightwaves Salford is part of the Light up the North Network that’s not necessarily a funding stream, but it’s a network of northern light festivals which come together to share their expertise. So, there’s a lot of support there for the culture and the festival”.

Lightwaves takes place in and around Salford and Media City from Thursday 4 to Sunday 7 December, from 4pm to 10pm.