“One of the highlights for me is enabling students to work with international artists.” – Anthony Head, Creative Director of Illuminate Bath

January 2012 will see the second Illuminate Bath festival following on from the inaugural event in 2010 which attracted more than 40,000 people. The festival will see the usual gloom of these winter evenings lit up by spectacular light installations created by local and international artists which will be free to explore across the city.

The festival, which will run from 25-28 January, will feature seven main installations, including an illumination inside the famous Roman Baths. The highlight of Illuminate Bath 2012 will be Clockwork City an installation by renowned urban artists Greyworld in which participants will be able to turn giant clockwork keys to activate sounds and projections.

As a Legacy Trust UK project and part of the RELAYS programme in the South West region, Illuminate Bath provides benefits to the community beyond simply hosting this free cultural event. The festival is a chance for local artists to showcase their work, with a particular focus on students who have been able to work with professional artists on installations.

With Clockwork City, students at Bath Spa University have been working with the multi-venue concept created by Greyworld to decide on the best spaces for the installation to be in the city, giving them valuable experience this kind of large scale public art. Students from a wide range of disciplines will be able to get involved in a number of ways, such as the live drawing and creative writing projections at the Great Pump Room or by volunteering to help with the running of the event.



Another installation, Head, Bodies, Legs, has worked with 50 primary school children in Bath. Animator Petra Freeman has been helping the children create their own drawings which will be transformed by filmmaker Tim Rolt into a projected interactive version of the classic paper game from which the work takes its name.

For more information on the festival and all of the featured installations, go to the Illuminate Bath website.