A final 2017 update and a message of thanks to our supporters and friends! Well where on earth did 2017 ago?! It all seems to have rushed by in quite a blur and we’re still trying to catch our breath here! As the year and our final exhibition draws to a close it’s time for myself and the team at Artizan to reflect on how it all went and to look forward to what’s to come. We’ve had a really wonderful year here at the gallery and we owe a huge debt of thanks to the artists who have joined us for the 2017 series; Richard Slater, Jim Doran, Jo West, Charles Somerton, Jennifer Harris, Marc Heaton, Alan Gregory, Chris Pitman, Clare Jenkinson, Martin Bush, Mark Wallis, Kat Fennell, Nina Kleinzeller and Susan Cavaliere. This is of course also not forgetting the hundreds of artists who have joined us for our open shows here and in other venues! To all of our returning artists, we are grateful for your continued support, and to those who were new to us in 2017 it’s great to have met you and thank you for choosing Artizan. Additionally, we need to recognise artists Arthur Homeshaw and Tim Long who are no longer with us, and also Paul Ansell who we sadly lost earlier this year. We were privileged to have hosted Paul’s final exhibition as he lost his battle with cancer; this unassuming man who had found a new direction with his art and was producing bright colourful abstracts that were unashamedly bold has left a lasting impression with his work and we miss him very much. This year we also introduced ‘The Loovre’ to our visitors, a dedicated space, albeit tiny and unusual, for artist, Anna Grayson’s, popular and well-known pastiche photography. The collection steadily grows with recent new works, ‘Ophelia in the Hot Tub’ and ‘GSOH’ now adorning our walls. The final extension to Artizan this year was the opening of the Basement Gallery, a dedicated space for 3D works which currently houses work by Gesche Buecker, David Jones, Kat Jenkinson, Roger Lissenden, Elisabeth Hadley, Amy McCarthy, Sally Fisher, Kevin Scott, Alan Austin, Gilly Pitman, Peter Stride, Joseph Hayton, and Mike Nuth. Both spaces have proven to be popular additions, offering the opportunity for us to continue broadening the variety of art we host, and our visitors more opportunity to explore the talented works being produced by Torbay’s artists. We have also been involved in some collaborative events with Torre Abbey and must thank James Tyson for welcoming us to be part of this year’s International Agatha Christie Festival and also Anna Gilroy for inviting us to exhibit there throughout December and into January. It really is a privilege for us to be part of events in this wonderful, historic building, a true jewel in Torbay’s Crown! Interspersed with all of this there has been Poetry, Music, Cocktails and Conversation, bringing with them, laughter, reflection and many new friends to the gallery. To all who have newly joined us in 2017 we hope to continue to welcome you back, and for those who have been with us for the long haul now, we glad to still have you with us. With the re-launch of our newly updated website, alongside our brand-new sister site art-hub.co.uk (currently in pre-launch), we are very excited to offer new digital opportunities and services in 2018. We’ve got a wonderful team of content creators on board with us, and we’re excited to now be receiving guest submissions to the website too. Back in the Gallery, the calendar is almost full, and we have decided to mix things up a bit, continuing with solo or small group shows in the main space but running a yearlong Salon Open show in the Garden Gallery. We guarantee another rich and diverse calendar throughout 2018 as we welcome Veronica Charlesworth, Michael McDonagh Wood, Jane Villaweaver, The Raw Art Forum, Sue Luxton, Alan Price-Roberts, Douglas Bardrick, Roger Lissenden, Sandra Lissenden, Chantal Ashwell, Becky Nuttall, and Marge Penn to the gallery. With many exciting events and activities planned to sit alongside the art 2018 promises to be anything but dull! Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to visit us this year and thanks to our wonderful and talented artists without whom there would be no Artizan. We wish you all a Happy Christmas and look forward to seeing you all again in 2018. #2017 #Artizan #Christmas2017 #Christmas

Dartington Hall is the seat of Modernism in South Devon and it was hugely influential to me as a child in the sixties. We regularly visited the gardens and the shops, including the Tridias toy shop, with visiting friends. Later I discovered that my father knew Marianne de Trey. they were founder members of The Devon Guild of Craftsmen when my dad owned Milton Head pottery in Brixham from 1950 -59. I was researching the painting All Hallow’s Day which shows three Modernist women who all studied at The Slade School of Art. They were independent and talented yet under valued at a time when the democratisation of art was at its height and women artists held little currency. Their identities were ultimately defined in history by their relationships with famous men but I did find a link with Dartington Hall through Iris Tree. Her son Ivan Moffat was educated at the Hall and although it is difficult finding references to Modernist women visitors, Dartington Hall’s progressive coeducational boarding school was chosen to embed his mother’s bohemian values. All Hallows’ Day Iris Tree (1897-1968) Iris studied art at The Slade. She is remembered as the daughter of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and for cutting her hair into a bob and leaving the rest on a train. She was a poet, absurdist and actress. Her son Ivan Moffat was educated at Dartington Hall Dora Carrington (1893-1932) Dora studied art at The Slade; she was a friend of Iris Tree. She is remembered for her love of Lytton Strachey and shooting herself when he died Gwen John (1876-1939) Gwen John studied art at The Slade; she is remembered for neglecting her health and as the sister of Augustus John, who painted Iris Tree’s portrait "for most of history, anonymous was a woman" – Virginia Woolf Visit my FaceBook page ‘The Longing and the Lack’ for lost women artists of the avant-garde #BeckyNuttall

Arthub needs you! Read on to find out more about how you can be a voice in our arts community and why we need your help to make the site even better! It’s been just a few months since Arthub went live but already we’re beginning to get a real sense of excitement about our new creative space. We’ve had some wonderful feedback on the content we’re sharing, and it’s great to have a space to tell you more about the work we’re doing and what we get up to when we’re not hard at work in the gallery. As always, we’re immensely grateful for the support our audience and visitors are showing us and we want to make sure we continue to make this a vibrant online platform to celebrate arts and culture. But to do this, we need your help because Arthub is not just a space for us. Take a look around at some of our most recent posts and you’ll see that the most important thing to the site is the diversity of local activity there is to talk about. We want to make sure that this diversity continues to drive the site, not just in the events we review or the blogs we post, but in the voices that are represented. So, we’re looking for contributors, in all shapes and sizes, to help us promote everything arts and culture in Torbay (and further afield)! Whether you’re an artist wanting to tell your story, or a society with an exhibition that you want to shine a spotlight on, tell us about it! Or maybe you’ve recently been and seen some great theatre or met some talented creatives who you think deserve shouting about, give us the inside scoop! There’s loads of ways you can play your part and help our creative community at the same time. We’ve outlined a few options below but if you’re doing something that doesn’t quite fit, we’d still love to hear from you. Send us an Exclusive Article If you don’t have your own outlet for blogging or content creation write for us! We’re always excited to receive ready to go articles about what you’re up to and the cultural activities your attending. You could tell us about: Yourself! Maybe you’ve got a creative project on the go, maybe you just want to tell your story. Either way, we’d love to hear about it. Someone Else! Know a great creative who’s all too modest? Shout about the great work they’re doing. A Review! Whether its an event old or new, tell us what you thought and whether you’d recommend it. Re-blog With Us If you’ve got your own website but you want to get your content shared elsewhere, send us a copy. We’ll link back to the original article as well so that people can read more great stuff from you. Promote Your Events We can even publish and promote events. Make sure to let us know in plenty of time what you’re up to and we can feature your show, exhibition or performance on the site. Let us manage your box office too and sell tickets online. Send us a Story Alternatively, leave the writing to us. Just send us the details and some images and we’ll have a chat about how we can do a piece for you. Fiction We love to get creative writing pieces too, whether it’s a poem, novel, short story or script. Invite Us Along Think there’s something we should be talking about? Send us an invite and one of our team will come along and do a piece. We may even bring the camera! Getting Visual And it doesn’t just have to be a written piece. Show us your photo albums too, or even short film pieces! #Contribute #Publishing #Promotion #Opportunities

Hi all, we just wanted to give everyone a quick update from the Artizan team as we bustle on through December. We’re having a lovely Winter Open Show with loads of friends coming in to visit us for the holiday season. There’s been a handful of new faces too, which we love, all excited to discover us here on Lucius Street. With the year closing, we’re beginning to think about our annual holiday which is going to be a little bit longer this year as we probably won’t be reopening until nearer the end of January. We’ve got loads on in 2018 already, so we figured we’d take a little bit of extra time to fully prepare ourselves and come back with a bang just a little before February. There’s lots of incredible pieces in the gallery at the moment and the whole team have mentally been doing Christmas shopping from the walls, and the shelves in the Basement Gallery which is now officially reopened. The Basement is also jam-packed with lovely pieces so make sure if you’re popping in to head down there, we’ve got ceramics which would make great affordable gifts and some really unique craft pieces; all local, all gorgeous! Our final day is the 23rd, so the Team have got your back for last minute Christmas shopping; make sure we’re on your list of independent retailers to visit. For any with a bit of extra time to spare, we’ve got a great little exhibition running in Torre Abbey too with works all under £500; you can view all the pieces from that one online. It’s a great day out regardless, so make sure to head over and see the wonderful team there. We also joined them for their Winter Fest craft fair the other weekend which was amazing fun. Do check out our review of this here. Wrapping up last week, we headed down to the Imperial for an early start with TTPL and friends to celebrate another great year of student placements in Torbay. We’ve had some lovely interns this year and we highly value the skills and viewpoints they bring to the gallery, so it’s great to get the chance to meet with likeminded businesses who are also supporting this program. We picked up our “Certificate of Excellence” from the team and we’re looking forward to working with many more great students next year. 2018 is looking scarily close but we’re fairly confident we’re prepared here. The calendar is pretty much fully booked for the main space and we’ve got some great new exhibition opportunities inside and out of the gallery. We’ll be carrying on regular updates with Beach Hut Magazine and our own new digital platform is receiving loads of lovely content submissions. We’re now representing the work of more than 50 artists over there with regular content provision from a growing team at the gallery. We’ll be bringing you more updates up until we close on the 23rd December and announcing more details from our 2018 calendar so do keep an eye on our social media. Until then, have a great week and happy Christmas shopping! #Artizan #ArtizanUpdate #2017 #2018

Whoops, we nearly forgot we'd taken these with the excitement of the first weeks of the show! Throwback to the launch of our Winter Open. #ArtistPreview #2017 #DecemberOpen #Artizan

What does an explorer look like? The first thing I picture is a khaki clad gentleman, sporting a pith helmet, probably with a rather fabulous mustache. The next image is Harrison Ford; it transitions between the Millennium Falcon racing Hans Solo and the whip wielding Indiana Jones, a curious amalgam of space smuggler and archaeological adventurer that makes for a very unconventional picture of an explorer; perhaps this image influenced George Lucas when he came up with the concept for the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull film? In quick succession after these I see Agatha Christie, Amelia Aerheart, and a friend of mine from university who was rarely seen without her down jacket or otherwise weighed down by a large rucksack which was never filled with course books. The question was raised by Belinda Dixon to start her talk at Torquay Museum as part of their Explorers Series. Belinda is an Ordnance Survey GetOutside Champion, a British Exploring Society Media Leader, a BBC broadcaster, Travel Writer for Lonely Planet and, after careful consideration, an explorer! If I'd been asked the question of her, I'd definitely have said she looked like an explorer, and not just because of her British Exploring Society hoodie. Her approach shoes and walking trousers, along with the rucksack tucked behind the lectern, gave the impression of someone stopping off for a social call in the middle of a day's hiking but more than this, she looks happy and invigorated and has an expression which I can only associate with the question “What does an explorer look like?” Behind her, a bundle of battered maps are stacked on a table. Belinda, is a self-confessed map geek and she excitedly shows us some of her favourites. One I find particularly interesting is a river map from a recent tour along the Yukon River which unlike most maps I am used to does not unfold into a vast and unmanageable expanse of paper, but instead follows the river downwards across spiral binding. Belinda’s is heavy with notations and she explains to us that for her maps are many things from potentially life saving tools, to immensely detailed sources of information, to containers of memories. Every camp is notated with a personal name including “Bear Camp” where a large paw print was spotted on the river bank as they arrived. Another of her favourites is a little closer to home; a battered map of Dartmoor, heavily used, documents her first wild camping trip and a 10 day expedition around the moor writing a piece for Lonely Planet. Belinda is admittedly “new” to exploring, at least in this professional sense, the majority of her expeditions and adventures having all occurred in the last two years. She cites herself as evidence that anyone can be an explorer and that adventures can happen near and far and be of any length, magnitude or grandeur. This is part of the remit of the GetOutside scheme, to challenge the perception that adventurers and explorers are in someway superhuman, or alternatively, are fortunate jobless nomads who have unlimited time to spend indulging their wanderlust. The Champions are all everyday people, many with normal, everyday jobs, who are out there trying to show us that anyone can go on an adventure. The scheme aims to promote the health benefits of getting out whilst encouraging a change in attitudes towards the feasibility of exploring. And OS have some great tools for doing just this. One which we have now used several times since Belinda introduced us to it is their Greenspace map, a new online and app based map which highlights and filters different types of green spaces. This has become our new favourite tool for finding dog walking spots locally, leading us to some great woods and copses that we really should have explored sooner! Another story Belinda shared is a particularly important one and it’s all about fear! Fear can often be an obstacle to adventure or trying new things and overcoming it is no easy thing. She describes a time when she stepped out of her comfort zone to go on a solo beach bivvy. Bivvying is a super stripped down version of camping with no tents, but instead a simple sleeping bag sized protective layer as your only barrier against the elements. The bit that caused concern for Belinda was the solo element, the risk of being isolated on a beach by herself, where someone might “get her”. A fellow GetOutside Champion pointed out to her that this was a learned fear and that the chances of anything adverse happening were slim and challenged her to face the fear by the end of the week. So one evening, Belinda headed out on the Coast Path, rucksack packed, convincing herself that she was just off on a scouting mission and not actually about to spend that night outside, alone, under the stars on the beach. By the next morning, her greatest concern was that a group of runners passing in the night with headtorches might have mistaken her for a body and sparked a search and rescue. The fear was overcome and the night was spent under the stars with a driftwood campfire and a bivvy full of sand; a great adventure! There is so much more about this event I could go into. Belinda truly was an inspiring voice to make you stop and think about just how much is possible even around the nine to five routine. Her perspective leaves you with a glimpse of how every outing can be an adventure, be it exploring an unknown road, stepping out of your comfort zone or simply breaking your routine. I would highly recommend checking out her website and whilst you’re at it, go and look at the GetOutside scheme on Ordnance Survey’s website. Torquay Museum still have loads more great talks coming up as part of this series which can be found here, we’re certainly going to be heading to a few more in the New Year, and if you fancy trying out the OS Greenspace Map you can find that here. I should also mention the fantastic work of the Shiphay First Brownie Group who were running the museum as part of the 2017 Kids in Museums Takeover Day. #2017 #ArtsampCulture #Talks #TorquayMuseum

There's a brand new exhibition coming to Artizan next year: The Artizan Garden Salon Open! This is an exciting new show for the Gallery, a year long rolling open which will run on a subscription basis. The exhibition model is incredibly simple. Pay £15 and bring in a piece of art to hang in the Garden Salon. Upon acceptance, your piece will then be on display for one month at which point you can guarantee it stays up the next month for just £10. And that’s all there is to it! We hope this will be a great opportunity to welcome all of our local artists, as well as those from further afield, to show a sample of their work on our walls on a long-term basis. February will be the first opportunity to enter work and we'll be looking to start of the year with a strong showing and some very full walls! Joining us for this opportunity is really simple so if you'd like to take part grab a booking form or come in and see us to find out more. Check out the calls page for full details of this opportunity! #opportunity #Artists #ArtsampCulture #2018 #exhibiting #open

We've only got one month of availability left for 2018! Once again, we've been lucky enough to have a huge amount of interest shown in exhibiting with us next year and our exhibition calendar is now all but full. It's looking likely that we'll be taking a short break in January to sort out some changes that are taking place here on Lucius Street, but after that we'll be looking to kick off the our exhibition calendar in February. This is also the last month we have left available! We've broadened the options for exhibitions next year and our calendar already has a great mix of open, solo and group shows being brought to us by a huge number of talented local artists. February will be no exception and we're happy to welcome proposals for any exhibition type to start the year. Whatever it might be, we'll be counting on you to help us begin 2018 with something special as we all make the final push out of Winter and into Spring! You'll be our opening act for our new calendar as we welcome audiences back into the gallery for the first time after Christmas, making this a great opportunity for a group of artists to join us in the space. If you're interested in submitting a proposal for an open, or booking the space for a group or solo show, please get in touch to snap up our final availability. We're look forward to welcoming you to the 2018 team! Check out the calls page for full details of this opportunity! #opportunity #Artists #ArtsampCulture #2018 #exhibiting

We're writing our January Culture Update and we need your help! This year, we've been writing a monthly culture update for Beach Hut Magazine, a local publication distributed in several editions across areas of Torbay. We're pleased to say these pocket sized updates have been well received and so we'll be continuing with them in 2018 and we need your help with our January instalment! So, if you're hosting or know of any great events going on in January which we should definitely feature, get in touch. There are just two rules for events we feature. Firstly, this is strictly a Torbay Culture Update so all events must be happening in one of the three towns, Torquay, Paignton or Brixham. Secondly, the event must be taking place in January (obviously)! And that's the lot. We'd love to hear from you if you've got an event, gig, exhibition, workshop, play, open studio, dance class, lecture, course or whatever else it might be that you think deserves some promotion. We've got to get our article written pretty soon, so any events need to be with us by December 10th for inclusion. Make sure to include all the relevant details including contact information and preferably a website link that we can let people have to find the event! #opportunity #Artists #BeachHutMagazine #ArtsampCulture #CultureUpdate

We’ve been loving everything that’s going on at Torre Abbey recently. The team over there have been doing some really wonderful work this year and we’ve been taking full advantage of our annual passes – which every local resident should have by the way(!) – so the Abbey’s begun to feel like a bit of a second home. We had a lovely weekend in April for Grinagog (which is back next year!) then shortly after visited for Thread a stunning exhibition from the Quilters’ Guild. The Agatha Christie Festival toured through which we enjoyed exploring and was promptly followed by Face2Face bringing award winning contemporary art to the Bay from the Arts Council Collection. And most recently we went along and caught the Devon Birds exhibition with spectacular wildlife photography on offer, and got stuck in with a print making workshop in the Learning Lab with Squircle Arts. However, our final visit of the year was for Winter Fest, a wintry weekend craft fair which took place across the whole ground floor of the Abbey and welcomed creatives from across Torbay. This is a great new event to the museum that we hope will become a staple of their calendar and we were pleased to have a stall here representing some of our 3D artists. Alongside us were some friendly faces; Gail Tresize (ceramic artist) and Janet Ventre (mosaic artist) from Cockington Craft Studios had both brought along some lovely pieces, and Purple Valley were also in attendance. Fellow Exhibitors in the Gathering Space The weekend absolutely flew by in a blur of Christmas tunes, arty folk and stollen cake! It was exceptionally well attended, particularly considering it was the first year of the event, and we sent some visitors home with local Christmas gifts. The offer of half-price entry to the Abbey was certainly an added bonus and a great chance to see the schools’ artwork exhibition for Remembrance 2017. Overall, another great addition to what has already been a fantastic year at Torre Abbey. We’re excited to see what’s on in 2018! #2017 #2018 #TorreAbbey #ArtsampCulture #Artizan #Christmas2017

Scrolling through upcoming Facebook events I spy a printmaking workshop running at Torre Abbey. Printmaking is something I did fleetingly at school and have often wanted to return to, especially since working at Artizan Gallery and seeing some incredible examples of linocuts, etchings and lithographs come through their exhibitions (see Arthur Homeshaw for some amazing examples). I load the event and at just £6 I can hardly resist. Click, the boyfriend and I are booked (we’ll tell him later)! The workshop is linked loosely to an exhibition that was at the Abbey; Devon Birds, a photographic show from the Devon Birds Society, is an exhibition of photography from the group which dates back to 1928 when it was known as the Devon Birdwatching & Preservation Society. This in itself is worth focusing on for a second. The exhibition has now sadly passed but, displayed in one of the Abbey’s main galleries, it showcased a collection of incredible wildlife photography captured by the society, depicting some of the common – and less common – avian sites found in Devon’s skies. Some of the images really were spectacular, the exhibition successfully giving a sense of the huge diversity of winged friends we have in the county. The society is well worth checking out too; they do some incredible conservation work, annually collating around 60,000 bird records, and there are some great incentives to membership. You can also view some of the images which were on display in the exhibition in their online gallery. Now, back to the workshop! We were met by a friendly face, Kate Richards, who we first met earlier this year at the gallery. Herself and the team from the newly established Squircle Arts CIC were running the event, one of many that they’re currently hosting at Torre Abbey. We were based in the Learning Lab, a group of about 12 with all the bits we needed laid out and ready to go. Ink trays, rollers, mark making tools and, to start with, a tester piece of lino. Kate took us through the basic steps, explaining how the sections we took away would impact the final print and how the different types of cutting tools would give different effects. A brief safety note to always cut away from ourselves – something boyfriend promptly ignored resulting in a nicked thump – and off we went! It was the perfect amount of tuition; enough to get us going in the knowledge we could ask questions if we needed to, but with the right amount of guidance that we could make our own discoveries. We were let loose on a small piece of lino to experiment with mark making, try out different tools and test out our first print. The most difficult part of linocutting is working out what areas appear black and what appear white; the bits you cut away (most often the outlines) become gaps where the ink avoids and therefore appear white, whilst everything else takes the ink and becomes solid colour on the print. The whole process was made really accessible, with the Squricle team successfully demonstrating how easily this could be done at home if we wanted to carry on. We inked our first linocuts and then printed our first pieces using the back of a wooden spoon to apply pressure. And they came out looking pretty great, the humble spoon a more than adequate (Change to suitable) replacement for a large press! Mark making tests completed, birds became the inspiration of our main print. I ambitiously chose a Kestrel, and passed a good hour continuing to get to grips with the materials as I made my design, carefully carving away bits of lino, wary that each mark is irreversible. Everyone in the room was intensely focused on their pieces and slowly, one by one, we all reached the pivotal moment of trying a print. We inked up again and this time my print went through the press; and I can happily say I was very pleased with the results! The act of printing is really exciting, revealing the image you’ve made and whether or not you’ve correctly pictured the effects of your marks. My design came out as I’d expected, and I was quite proud of the impact it had. I carried on experimenting with prints on different coloured paper to see the effects but this time using the back of a wooden spoon to press. Again, it was really interesting to see the difference this made. The image was not quite as sharp as the press, but the softer style was still really attractive. Too soon the workshop was over, but It was amazing how much we’d learnt in such little time. The whole evening was a lovely experience, with Squircle definitely hitting the right balance in the way they delivered the class, and succeeding in making linocutting feel completely accessible. Everyone went home with beautiful prints and hopefully as much confidence to carry on as I felt! Great job Squircle Arts on a wonderful workshop! A Bit More About Squircle Who are we? A squircle is a shape that sits somewhere between a circle and a square. It is a square-circle. For us, it's symbolic. It represents how it all began. Four people who had ideas, and together we had a dream, a vision - to share our love of the arts, nature and culture with our community. In October 2017 Squircle was born. The Squircle Arts team are Kate, Joni, Heather & Dan! What do we do? We are a new community interest company based in Devon. We love the arts and culture and we want to share it with you! We will be popping up in locations across the Bay. Come and find us at future events - in the woods at Lupton House, at Torre Abbey Museum and Gardens, Torquay Museum, on beaches and at festivals. We also take our arts and cultural activities into local schools and residential care homes. Our workshops link to our cultural history and natural environment. Upcoming pop up workshops will include: clay sculpture, making your own screen-printing press, cyanotype botanical printing, outdoor ‘Art Jam’ events, after-school 'Art Pop' and large-scale community projects including our ‘Create one / Donate one’ project. Please find us and like us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram @SquircleArts & at www.squirclearts.co.uk We love the arts and culture, We want you to love it too. We’ll share everything we know In a pop up workshop near you! #2017 #Squircle #Workshops #TorreAbbey #Artizan #ArtsampCulture

This week, Illuminate - a light festival for Plymouth - took place for the first time at the historic Royal William Yard after many years on the Barbican, and, artist in residence, Martin Bush invited us down to join him and enjoy the experience. It was a chilly but dry night, so we donned our warm coats and woolly hats and scarves and headed on down to Plymouth. The spectacular light show marked the 397th anniversary of the Mayflower sailing from Plymouth to America in 1620, a journey which took 66 days to complete and significant for transporting the first English Puritans to the New World. The event forms part of a worldwide countdown to the Mayflower400, an event which will commence in November 2019 and culminate at Illuminate 2020 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the voyage. This is, according to Professor Chris Bennewith, lead on the University of Plymouth’s School of Art, Design and Architecture submissions to the festival, “a bit of a test run”, but that is not to say that Illuminate 2017 was merely a warm up event, because it was spectacular! The main piece, a captivating light projection, was displayed on the Melville Building, home of the offices of the old Victualling Board. Alongside this were other illuminations around Royal William Yard, workshops, exhibitions and live music giving the whole space a truly festive feel! The light projections were designed and mapped by a few different organisations, all coordinated by The Media Workshop and Plymouth College of Art, who, as part of the European funded project Euranim, worked in collaboration with animation students from across France, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark and Finland to produce pieces based on the maritime heritage of Plymouth. Light Art installations and visual pieces were also created by the staff and students from the University of Plymouth’s School of Art, Design and Architecture, led by Professor Chris Bennewith who was formerly Creative Director for Wellington’s LUX Light Festival in New Zealand amongst other international projects. LUX attracts over 100,00 across a 9-day festival and Illuminate has similar ambitions, hoping that with 2 years of developing the event, it can attract audiences to rival the Annual British Fireworks Championships hosted in the city and spread across an array of Plymouth’s waterfront locations. All of which is pretty impressive for an event which has its humble origins in an understated lantern parade around the Barbican! This year, Illuminate has certainly made a strong start towards achieving these goals, with the yard buzzing with hundreds of visitors on what was a truly memorable evening. We’ll certainly be along over the next few years and we won’t be missing the Mayflower400. Thanks for inviting us Martin! #2017 #Illuminate #Plymouth #Mayflower400 #ArtsampCulture