A brand new Light Up Crawley Festival will be coming to Crawley Town Centre on Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March and is designed to ignite Crawley with free, family-friendly cultural experiences.
Collaborating with some of the UK's leading digital creatives, the two-day festival of light and sound will transform familiar public spaces into vibrant hubs of interactive light art and performances as follows:
SPRING FORWARD by Same Sky
Following a series of schools and community arts workshops, arts charity Same Sky will create an installation of willow and tissue sculptures, lights and sound inspired by the end of Winter and coming of Spring. The installation will feature a community lantern lit parade with salsa band.
Friday 28 February, 5.30pm onwards and Saturday 6pm to10pm, Memorial Gardens.
AN OBSCURE CAMERA by Flexer and Sandiland
An interactive, thought-provoking installation displayed in an empty shop, exploring the consequences of everyday actions in public spaces. Enter a large dark space and be immersed in a multitude of ornate rococo frames projected onto the surrounding walls and ceiling. Each of these frames contains a close-up view of the live outdoor environment outside of the building.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 12pm to 5pm, County Mall.
THE ELECTRIC GRAND BUG HOTEL by Make Amplify
‘The Electric Grand Bug Hotel’ is a fun, interactive light bright installation for the entire family. Imagine a larger-than-life, light-up colouring book that animates and amplifies a local landmark, that you create! Award-winning arts and technology collective MakeAmplify has collaborated with family design company Hello Dodo to create this site specific interactive projection mapping installation. Outline drawings of the Grand Bug Hotel are projected across nine surfaces of a public building. The public are then invited to colour in the drawings on the provided iPads and they can see their creations light up on the walls.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm, outside County Mall (Memorial Gardens).
POLARIS by Seb Lee Productions
‘Polaris’ from BAFTA-winning artist Seb Lee-Delisle is a dazzling immersive laser light display set to original music. St John’s Church will be filled with state-of-the-art lasers and lighting, along with a high-fidelity sound system with an original score written and recorded by the artist using 1980’s synthesizers. Please be aware this show contains flashing lights and haze.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm, St John’s Church, Church Walk.
SPARKS by LED Drummers
Street-theatre with magical live music, movement and lighting spectacular in which mysterious characters composed of light and sound transform the landscape around them.
Saturday 1 March from 5.30pm, parading through the town centre.
DIGITAL FUNFAIR
Gavin Morris creates dazzling interactive light installations designed to encourage collaborative play and control of the urban environment. These include ‘Light-Hearted’ - a giant LED heart which lights up when two (or more) people hold hands, highlighting the value of co-operation and connection. It’s a mesmerising spectacle and just a wonderful (instagrammable) moment; ‘The LED Curtain’ - a giant scrolling message board and a nearby keyboard which allows you to type messages onto the display. It’s jazzed up with a bunch of animations and light patterns to make it look better in your videos; and, ‘The Hexagons’ - a custom made wall of LED neon hexagons each with its own button to turn it on, off and change the colour. It’s a simple canvas to create your own light art.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm, Queens Way.
EVERYDAY TACTICITY by Charlotte Spencer Projects
A seven-minute looping silent film installation co-created in 2021 with filmmaker Zoe Manders and a wide variety of community groups in Brighton and Sussex. It explores the importance of touch in our lives, capturing and celebrating the beautiful, intimate, richly tactile relationships that exist between our bodies, each other and the world that we live in.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm, digital screen in Queens Square.
GAPS IN THE LIGHT by Lila Dance
A portrait film of four people removed from their world, their life and left entirely to their own devices. Jon, Claire, Mikey and Lucca are friends, but do they really know each other? Stuck together, they close the door on their house for the last time; their lives interweave; small spaces become sanctuaries, cells, stages, studios, gyms and ballrooms.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm , former M&S building wall, The Pavement.
PAST PRESENT FUTURE by Project Female
A film exploration of how female protests shape our world.
Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, 6pm to 10pm, former M&S building wall, The Pavement.
The festival is jointly funded by Crawley Borough Council and National Project Lottery Funding from Arts Council England. It is supported by Crawley Town Centre Business Improvement District.
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