Lumiere Light Festival, 2021 - Penshaw Monument, Sunderland, UK

 

Lumiere returns to the North-East of England once again, but on this occasion the light festival is designated to additional locations, instead of traditionally being confined to Durham City Centre. Covid 19 was responsible for a rethink, when it came to assigning this event to a host of locations, as the organizers realized that the general public would be best off segregated, in an attempt to stop the virus spreading. The upshot of this was the announcement that Lumiere 2021 would also appear at Seaham Pier, Finchale Priory and Penshaw Monument. Here is my take on LUMIERE 2021, in video and stills format, with accompanying 'Official Soundtrack'.

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A Telling Of Light, By Elaine Buckholtz & Ian Winters (US/UK)

 

Location : Penshaw Monument, Sunderland/County Durham Border

 

Viewing Point : Herrington Country Park, Suderland, UK

 

With kind permission of National Trust.

 

A beautiful and haunting memorial to those we have lost to Covid on this North East landmark.

A Telling of Light is a special new commission to memorialise and commemorate the huge number of lives lost to Covid in the UK during the course of the pandemic, the work will reflect and recognise the magnitude of this loss and specifically the loss of breath.

This contemplative piece will be visible from up to 20 miles away. It will incorporate a multiplicity of abstracted landscape scenes changing into single illuminated breaths, rising up the pillars of the Penshaw Monument and disappearing into the dark of the night.

These visually compelling sequences will be accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful music that focuses in on Hildagard von Bingen, the 12th-century mystic and visionary and one of the earliest-known female composers. The soundtrack will be available  for audiences to download to listen to at a distance as they view the piece, here on the Lumiere website and on the Artichoke guide on the Bloomberg Connects app.