A french Tango and fire engulfed St Johns Square on the second night of Blackpool’s LightPool Festival, part of the new network of Light Festivals across the UK.
Last night was pretty phenomenal. All I knew when I arrived was that it was moody and noir and there would be fire. It was a visual feast of showstopping performance. We are all so obsessed with staying in and watching XFactor? How would you know that if you just step into your local town centre you can experience some of this.
I have more images to show from this sumptuous show. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do photographing the performances.
Remember that if there is one thing you should do this half term is get to Blackpool, Lancashire to witness history in the making.
Friday the 28th October saw the launch of Blackpool’s very own Light Festival, Lightpool.
Blackpool and Fylde College Student as part of parade for Captain Kronos: Return to Earth. Blackpool, UK, Lancs. Lightpool Festival.
Over 30 installations including performances make up the Festival running from the 28th October to Wednesday.
I am super lucky to be able to photograph for the event which really is a photographers wonderland if you like photographing fast moving, low light objects, which luckily I do.
The Stories Under Our Feet. Victoria Street, Blackpool. Artist: Elisa Artesero.
Last night saw Captain Kronos: Return to Plant Earth by Kazimer Productions who worked with Blackpool and Fylde College to create an amazing performance incorporating a space ship landing outside in St Johns Church in Blackpool’s Cedar Square. Followed up closely by On The Edge of a Rising Tide Sound Intervention with musicians from The Boom Bike Bourree.
I had spent much of my day watching the rehearsals and capturing “behind the scenes” moments.
Take a look at some of my images here:
Rehearsals at Alive Church Hall, Raikes Parade Blackpool. With Students from Blackpool and The Fylde College.
St Johns Square Blackpool. Technical Rehearsal.
Blackpool Comedy Carpet run through:
I popped in to hear Bob and Roberta Smith talk about his views on the art world and how visual language is important now more then ever.
The artist Bob and Roberta Smith – Has installed a specially commissioned lit installation for Blackpool. “Art Is Your Human Right”. Follow the specially formulated map of Blackpool to enjoy all the art installations in Lightpool.
Bob and Roberta Smith, instantly likable as a speaker – his message was that we can communicate sometimes difficult messages through art and even if it is not instantly easy to understand, perhaps art will make you question and sit up to what could be.
At dusk Captain Kronos and his journey into Blackpool began on The Comedy Carpet as we were toured through the winding streets by his gang of glittery minions of Blackpool, to witness his arrival from a bejeweled spaceship descending over St Johns Church in a flurry of glitter and fireworks to a bedazzled audience.
After the departure of Captain Kronos I caught up with Dan Fox and his mobile projection bikes as his band played brass instruments to families and children who followed the performance with great gusto and glee as the projections talked to the audience of fantastical creatures.
The Lightpool Festival runs until Wednesday with lots more in store. For more info check the link attached.
Final word from me is that I am in my absolute element “photography wise” and feel super blessed to be able to capture such amazing and fleeting happenings. Now is the time to embrace Blackpool’s amazing event and shout from the rooftops how amazing Blackpool really is.
When time has passed and things have changed. Do you remember that feeling of that time, place, person or feeling or do we
move on?
“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
I am currently working on a collaboration with local artist and educator: Jayne Simpson http://jaynesimpson.co.uk/
Using a film of a shrine I had made for a previous project based on memory and remembrance we set about projecting the film into the concrete space, onto walls of thevast arch above us, in small nooks dripping with stalactites wewrapped the projection around pillars and plinths and Claire began photographing this amazing space whilst trying to capture those qualities that were not visible, like the damp stench and the diesel and water on the floor. The atmospheric and narrative based images that Clairecaptured led the way to further collaborations and individual work whilst retaining the sentiment of our curatorial idea - Jayne Simpson artist.
'One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it'.
Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space
The projections placed into the space of The Boathouse which
was due to be filled with concrete had such an ambient feeling and clues to a narrative of its former life.
“When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.”
- But there’s no place like that in this world.
- Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time
flows past without a break.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Our investigations led us to The Regent a former cinema and bingo
hall in Blackpool town centre.
A place where dozens of people had passed through shared joy and
laughter now selling antiques and collectibles on the ground floor
But above lay a labyrinth of old corridors, staircases and
balconies with a suggestion of what had gone before.
In the Spring/Summer we got access to ‘The Regent’ on Church Street Blackpool, now a thriving Antique/Secondhand centre the building had been rescued and given another purpose and gratefully we were
given access to the upper floors of the building that had once been used as a Theatre but retained some of the original stall and lots of ornate, although crumbling plaster work. We ventured further into the enclosed spaces at the top of the building including the
original projection room. - Jayne Simpson - Artist.
Following Jayne's residency at Fleetwood Museum and it's recent
news of loss of funding, I was invited to photograph inside,
investigating its exhibition and space with my camera. I wondered
how Blackpool Museum could help with their recent good fortune,
could the exhibits be shared. If Fleetwood Museum was to go, how
would we remember the rich fishing towns history? https://www.blackpool.gov.uk/Residents/Libraries-arts-and-heritage/Blackpool-Museum.aspx
As art galleries and museums get closed down. As creativity
gets removed from education.
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is
the most important of all the lessons of history.
To see further work, installation and exhibition.
'A rather large dossier of literary documentation on the poetry of houses could be studied from the single angle of the lamp that glows in the window'.
Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space
A place where dozens of people had passed through shared joy and
laughter now selling antiques and collectibles on the ground floor
But above lay a labyrinth of old corridors, staircases and
balconies with a suggestion of what had gone before.
'A rather large dossier of literary documentation on the poetry of houses could be studied from the single angle of the lamp that glows in the window'.
Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space
Claire Griffiths Photography 