Past Projects
Thursday, 15 March 2007
Luminox 2007
Luminox was a spectacular public event held in Broad Street, Oxford over three evenings in March 2007. The event, which attracted 25,000 people, was staged to celebrate 1000 Years of Oxfordshire. It took place in the heart of the historic city, illuminating the colleges and cultural buildings which encircle the street.
Luminox was produced by Oxford Inspires and Oxford-based producer Simon Chatterton. The installation was made possible by collaboration between the University of Oxford, Balliol, Trinity, Exeter Colleges, the City and County Councils and local businesses. At its heart Luminox featured the work of French fire artists Carabosse. Alongside the breath-taking sculptures of Carabosse was a contemporary music installation programmed by Oxford Contemporary Music and a giant bamboo spire specially created by the Oxford artist Ted Dewan from which a glowing pendulum swung, making 1000 swings per night. In an education programme organised by Oxford community arts organisation Fusion, hundreds of children from across the county made candle lanterns that were displayed as part of the installation.
"This really was something different, and very much an event the whole family could enjoy. It showed the value and popular appeal of arts initiatives to capture the imagination. It also confirmed something I have long believed—ever since my days as chair of the City Planning Committee—that Broad Street is a fantastic space, which we should make a lot more of. It is potentially one of the finest squares in Europe, and it's high time we had a layout and amenities there to enable both local people and visitors to enjoy it to the full."
Andrew Smith MP
Key achievements of Luminox
Artistic
Luminox was a ground-breaking event both locally and nationally. It was the first time that Carabosse, who are being commissioned to create work for the European Capitals of Culture in Luxembourg and Romania and who perform around the world, have been invited to stage their work in a UK city centre. It proved that Oxford can stage innovative world-class public art events that attract significant audiences. As well as being beautiful and transcendent in purely aesthetic terms, the work produced by Carabosse was unique and powerful in its ability to entirely transform the urban landscape and to create a shared sense of participation and wonder amongst local people.
The contemporary music programme produced by Oxford Contemporary Music was key to the impact of the event. Highlights of the programme included an entirely improvised set performed by the acclaimed Elysian Quartet, a solo performance by Kora player Jalifili Cissoko and a haunting set from local group ‘Sleeps in Oysters’. Public response for this programme of high quality, cutting edge music was exceptionally positive and demonstrated that staging this type of music in exciting, open-access environments can be key to developing interest and awareness amongst the public of this type of work.
The creation of the Luminox spire by Oxford-based artist and illustrator Ted Dewan was a remarkable achievement which gave a core of local specificity to the event and which created, temporarily an iconic sculpture which encapsulated the twin themes of place and time which underpinned Luminox from its inception. The work undertaken by Ted was not only demanding in terms of the design and creation of the work itself, but also in terms of the degree of community involvement which he managed throughout the process. The creation of the spire involved large volunteer teams, amongst them schoolchildren and young people at risk who rarely if ever get the opportunity to participate in arts projects of this kind.
The creation of specially decorated candle lanterns by large numbers of young people from schools across the county was a successful way of creating a very direct participatory element to the event. The creation of candle lanterns was overseen by Fusion who worked with a number of professional local visual artists to stage the workshops. For many of the children involved this was their first opportunity to work with a professional artist. The workshop element was also successful in helping to publicise the project and was a way of extending its reach across the county. In addition to the schools workshops the visual artists were also commissioned directly by Oxfordshire County Council to produce a number of special artworks commemorating the towns of the county. These specially commissioned glass bowls were displayed at the event and subsequently presented to the County Council.
Partnerships
One of the key achievements of Luminox was in its ability to develop partnerships at a local level. It brought together County and City Councils at a planning and operational level to support the staging of the work. The positive relationships forged were key to the success of the event and involved not only local authority representatives, but members of the emergency services, the university and colleges, local traders and other arts organisations in the city. Of particular note was the relationship formed that led to the Bodleian Library and Sheldonian Theatre allowing the installation of fire sculptures suspended from and placed within extremely sensitive heritage buildings. On a sponsorship level, the impact of Luminox enabled new partnerships to be built with local companies and existing ones strengthened. In summary, the success of Luminox has raised the ambition of local authorities and organisations and created a firm basis on which to develop future activities.
Production
The technical management and logistical planning of the event was professionally overseen by experienced production manager Jonathan Bartlett working with the producer Simon Chatterton, and supported by a local crew. This gave the local team including Deputy Production Manager Paul Bartlett the opportunity to gain very direct experience of a large and unusual project in Broad Street. This capacity building will help to create a firm technical base that can support future projects.
Significant achievements in the production of the event included the event management and risk assessment planning necessary to gain the support of the relevant landowners and statutory authorities, the permissions to work with the historic University properties and the close liaison with the Highways Department of the County Council which resulted in the unprecedented partial closure of Broad Street for ten days.
Press, marketing and audience
Luminox attracted significantly greater audiences than was initially projected and
also achieved a dramatic profile in terms of media coverage. There was considerable coverage in the local newspapers with regular stories leading up to the event, many of these focused on the building of the spire. Radio coverage was also consistent with interviews on BBC Oxford and 107 FM. BBC’s Bill Heine broadcast his show live from Broad Street on the Friday of the event. The highly visual nature of Luminox also lent itself to television and both BBC and ITV broadcast footage of the event on their regional news. An unexpected national media endorsement of the event came courtesy of ACE’s Peter Hewitt who cited Luminox as a “wonderful event” on Radio 4’s Today programme. The event also attracted arts professionals and outdoor event producers from across the country.
At the event, feedback forms were circulated with a Freepost address and room for comments. Audience feedback from Luminox has been overwhelming and consistently positive. The event appears to have had a profound impact on those who attended and comments frequently cite Luminox as ‘the best event they have ever seen’ and as something which will ‘stay with them for the rest of their lives’. Many people were moved profoundly by the experience of ‘the whole town being brought together to celebrate’. A large number of people have signed up for a mailing list to be kept in touch with future events.
Legacy
• The tremendous audience potential in Oxford – there seems to be a hunger for this type of work in the city and people seem to respond tremendously positively. In many places an audience for this type of work needs to be built and people learn over time how to behave as an audience. It was noticeable that in Oxford the audience are already comfortable and ready to explore unfamiliar experiences.
• The impact of work like this in a city centre location – the significance of staging this type of piece in a city centre location cannot be underestimated. Although it would have been cheaper and easier to have staged the piece in a park this would not have had the same resonance. People’s relationship with the space and their environment was fundamentally changed as many of the comments received will attest to. A space which was often used only by tourists and students became the heart of the city.
• The value of relationships - As has been mentioned, the event was only possible due to the relationships and trust between partners that was created. This work will be highly significant in terms of future events but is very time consuming. The large number of stakeholders in the project made it an extremely intensive process to plan.
• Luminox has had a profound impact in terms of reaffirming the role of culture in the town and its ability to impact on the lives of ordinary people. Its value in the longer term will be proven across a number of key areas of legacy:
• Luminox has reopened the debate around the use of Broad Street with local MPs seeking to maximise the public usage of the street
• Luminox will inform the public arts dimension of the West End development which is to take place over the next few years
• The relationships forged with the local authorities, traders and University will help to underpin and facilitate future events and activity
• The success of Luminox has stimulated demand for an ongoing programme of performance in outdoor and public spaces
• Carabosse’s visit to Oxford has elicited interest from Royal Opera House in bringing Carabosse to Covent Garden in Winter 2008
‘Someone, who had been there, told me next day not only how beautiful the fire pieces in the city setting were but how impressed she was by the calm civility of a happy crowd enjoying one of their spaces transformed. She contrasted this to another street event: the annual fun fair where you went with anxiety clutching your bag to your side’.
‘It seems as if we are currently going through an era of triviality, selfish and sometimes destructive self-indulgence. It is often cynically said that art won’t change anything but I regain hope I had in my youth, revived through this adventure. The creation of beauty, a reality for thousands in Broad Street, in their city, will tell its value beyond the emptiness of buying into a commercial product or a life seen only through a video screen’- (Steven Woolhouse—from a letter from a Steward)
