News from Nowhere

This is the weekend when Durham hosts the Lumiere festival of lights: my reactions to this are always pretty mixed, and this year, on the tail-end of a cold, I didn't plan any major excursions. Nonetheless, by the end of Friday, with letters to post, we wandered down to the priority postbox under the viaduct, ready to combine our errand with viewing the two installations in easy reach of home.

The flavour of the whole operation is best summed up by the fact that the priority postbox, the one with a late collection, was closed. No explanation, so this may or may not have been Lumiere related, and no suggestion where to find the nearest / best alternative: just a "not in service" sign blocking the slot. We carried our letters around with us while we searched for illumination, then durham_rambler drove up to the sorting office while I made dinner. No harm done, but a note struck.

The next bum note was self-inflicted: I had seen a piece in the local paper about the artwork under the viaduct, and thought oh, that's very similar to something they've done in the past..., when I should have thought they are using an old photograph, that's not how it will look. Which is why we spent some time waiting for the display to start, and for lights to appear. Never mind, the viaduct itself is well worth admiring:



This is just a Durham streetscape at dusk: as a backdrop, it's quite a challenge to the artist. ( Actual Lumiere under the cut - )

Two minor installations from what Lumiere has to offer, and it's not too late to go out and see more, but I don't think we will. (It is too late, and has been for least a week, to get tickets for the city centre.)

lamentables sent me to Peterlee. I would have heard eventually from other sources - did, indeed, receive an e-mail about the event from arts organiser Artichoke, a whole day before it started. But it was lamentables who tipped me off well in advance, so that we could make plans to visit, that there was to be a mini-Lumiere event, illuminating Apollo Pavilion, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this masterpiece of brutalist architecture / huge concrete monstrosity (delete where not applicable). I admit to a fondness for the thing, just because it is so extreme and unreasonable. We visited it during the Heritage Open Days in 2007, when we were allowed to climb up and walk through it, which was intended in the original plan, but you know how these things go. I seem to have been ambushed by some urgent form-filling in, and not posted about it at the time. Sorry. But we went back on Saturday ( and took pictures to prove it. )

We have just had the weekend of Lumiere, Durham's biennial festival of lights. As usual we made some expeditions to see what was on show, and, as usual, my reactions were pretty mixed. For the first two evenings they ranged from "Oh, that's quite nice..." to "Let me out of here, NOW!" And I hope to expand on that later. But on Saturday we went to the Botanic Gardens to see For the Birds, with no idea what to expect beyond what the Lumiere website told us: "a meditative and immersive journey through the wilderness to discover over 20 light and sound installations inspired by birds and created by a collective of artists:" Useful practical information might have added: "You enter by the gate adjacent to the Park & Ride, walk the length of the Gardens, and back, leaving through the same gate you came in."

What they really couldn't say, I suppose, is that this was by some margin the best thing in the Festival. Also the hardest to photograph, because it makes the best use of darkness.

But wrap up warm and come for a walk in the dark woods. Just follow the little white lights:



( We were warned: 'There will be surprises' )

For the birds was devised in 2014 for the RSPB's Ynys-hir reserve. There are photographs on the website of one of the artists ihvolved.

Overheard of the evening: "But why would they have an installation of a crying child?"

Yes, of course I'm thinking about Paris. But I have nothing useful to say on the subject.

So have a picture from the Lumiere Festival. After the sound and fury of the son et lumière, and the interminable procession through the maze of barriers which brought us eventually into the cathedral, after the unimpressive lighting of the cathedral itself, eventually we came into the cloister and admitted that yes, the rose window was rather good -

- and then we emerged into this garden, and it was all light and fun and good humour:



We'll go back for more tonight, if the rain holds off.

After the disappointments of the early evening, the giant snowdome in the Market Place was a welcome blast of pure fun: I liked the way Neptune was silhouetted against the royal blue of the dome, as if about to burst its bubble with his trident, and I liked the snow, so much more conveniently contained than the real thing. I was less sure about the neon message on the plinth, and not just from incipient neon fatigue: yes, I understand that the message 'I love Durham' was part of the conversion of the statue into a tacky souvenir, but given the passions aroused by that statue over the last couple of years, is it possible to take that message at face value? (The Guardian's reporter managed this, remarking that "Shoppers and workers walk by this statue every day without giving it a second glance. Now, though, they were agog, seeing it as if for the first time" and was corrected at some length in the comments).

Most of the complaints I have read about the event were about the crowds, and the failure of the organisers to anticipate and deal with them. So it's only fair to say that the Market Place was the only point at which we found ourselves in any sort of crowd, and it was, as someone remarked, nothing like the crush on Gala day. That said, we didn't go up to Palace Green: the son et lumière at the Cathedral was wonderful two years ago, but we wanted to see something new.

( And we did... )

The publicity makes much of the fact that Luniere 2011 is more than twice as big as Luniere 2009: but it wasn't twice as much fun - though it was drier, which may help explain why the number of visitors was so much greater. It's my constant lament that an event will be counted a failure unless it is more crowded than I find comfortable, but this time I'm not alone in finding the crowds (and the crowd management) a major bar to enjoyment. Our plans for the rest of the weekend meant we were doing as the organisers advised, and visited at a relatively quiet time at the very beginning of the festival, so perhaps we hit more than our share of teething troubles - I don't know, I can only report what I saw (and didn't see) - but I'd have settled for fewer items and more of them functioning properly. Some of the artworks would have had more impact, too, if there'd been less repetition. By pure luck we had saved the best till last, and came away happy, but we didn't feel the need to go out again the following night and try to see the things we had missed.

Last year, Durham was granted Enlightenment; this year we had Lumiere. Another November, another arts event cum festival of electric lighting - except that apparently the two are unconnected, different organisers, different commissioning bodies. Which is odd because I would have said that Lumiere answered a number of my criticisms of Enlightenment: specifically, it engaged more with the city, instead of being imposed upon it, and it proposed only reasonable secure well-lit walking routes. Was it as easy on the eye? I thought so, but don't take my word for it, come for a walk round and see for yourself.

( Many pictures and even more words under the cut )