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Illuminating York

Project Details

£50,000 to £99,999

Practice

Group Ginger

42a Park Place , Leeds , LS1 2RY

Simon worked with York City Council and Bright White Ltd. to bring forward an artistic installation which creates a parallel narrative where York’s Museum Gardens is discovered to be the original Wonderland from Lewis Carroll’s classic novel. The details of the illuminating York festival were difficult to keep secret as the proposals for the festival incorporated the illustrations, drawings and creative input of Vic Reeves. We responded to an invitation by York City council, inviting artists to provide creative ideas for the festival and to show York in a new light. Our response was to overlay a narrative onto the city and interpret this narrative through a series of light installations. We chose Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland with the promise that York would be transformed into wonderland for the five day festival. York loved the idea and asked us to collaborate with Bright White Ltd. Their idea was to introduce the absurdity and humour of Vic Reeves to the festival. The two ideas fitted perfectly and we delivered a lighting festival at a scale un-seen by the city of York before.