White Night 2010 - Illumination

About

White Night is a new festival for the city that aims to celebrate the artistic and cultural life of Brighton & Hove: from cutting edge contemporary art to populist entertainment, palaces to ‘pop-up' raw spaces and everything in between. It takes place in venues all over the city. The festival aims to encourage residents and visitors to actively explore arts and culture in the city both indoors and outdoors, help to celebrate the end of British Summer Time and provide an alternative to the dominant Saturday night time drinking culture: a cultural reclaim the streets. The festival is led by Brighton & Hove Arts Commission and the city council working with partners across the city. Brighton & Hove has hosted 2 successful white nights: the first themed around Love attracted an audience of 15,000 the last themed around Fortune, 25,000. The theme for this year's White Night is Illumination as in to light up, to enlighten, to lighten up and to be enlightened. The festival programme will include projections, light installations, film and flame and there will also be shows, performances and exhibitions designed to illuminate, elucidate and inspire. Last year's White Night attracted 25,000 to the city centre to engage with activities as diverse as live music in libraries, movies in swimming pools, midnight walks around a stone age fort and projections from the future. This year will be the mix of indoor and outdoor events across the city. Some initial ideas are: - Indoor venues: our cultural venues again throw open their doors with a programme of surprising ‘one night only' events featuring music, performance, visual art and hands on activity - Programme partnerships with festivals across the city - Illuminations Illuminated: A trail of aphorisms and quotes will appear across the city in different contexts, locations and in different media. - 13 steps to Enlightenment: A series of talks, debates and seminars covering practical philosophy and insights for living - A new commission in both Amiens and Brighton featuring a collaboration between a UK and French artist - Illuminated stained glass windows in churches throughout the city - llustrate — a mini festival of guerrilla life drawing across the city in different locations and contexts - A programme of artists & musicians from Amiens, France White Night is presented by Brighton & Hove City Council and Brighton & Hove Arts Commission, supported by Arts Council England SE and SEEDA as part of the Festival Clusters Initiative. White Night Nuit Blanche is funded by Interreg IV A France (Channel) England co-financed by ERDF.