Blackpool Illuminations gets arty with new LightPool festival

Blackpool – the town famous for its autumn illuminations – launches a new festival of light this weekend, featuring installations from renowned artists including Yoko Ono and Bob & Roberta Smith.

The first LightPool festival, which takes place from the 28 October to 2 November and coincides with the penultimate weekend of the Blackpool Illuminations, will see more than 30 installations, sculptures and performances take place across the town centre.

Highlights of the six-night festival include a new commission by Bob and Roberta Smith, Art Is Your Human Right, that will feature illuminated words hanging around the town; a display of 34 light drawings of children in windows of the former Ocean Hotel on North Promenade; and a performance from street-fire pioneers, Les Commandos Percu.

Two works by Yoko Ono will also be displayed, including her classic 1965 light art installation, Parts of a Light House, which will sit in the nave of Blackpool’s Sacred Heart Church, and modern work IMAGINE PEACE, love yoko, a moving billboard that will be shown on Blackpool’s historic North Pier.

The festival will also include installations and performances premiered at Burning Man festival in Nevada, and LumiDogs, a mass illuminated dog walk on 30 October.

All the installations will form an illuminated trail throughout the town. A specially designed map will be available to help visitors navigate their way through the works.

• For more details, see visitblackpool.com/lightpool
  

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