26/07/2022
Under One Sky is a pop up art installation at 117 St James Street. Come by and see the art work created by local artists and community groups, now until the end of August. Photos here by Tom Lally.
Here is the blurb in full:
Before Covid-19, Burnley Light Night took place every December. Artists, community groups and families came together to make lanterns and artwork, and paraded them through the town, accompanied by local bands and budding musicians from Burnley schools. We lit up the town for one night only and danced in the streets. From modest beginnings, the event grew and became a staple of the seasonal calendar in Burnley Town Centre. We had big plans for 2020 but that obviously couldn’t go ahead due to the pandemic. In 2021, with Covid restrictions still making our lives so unpredictable, we decided not to hold an event but instead to engage artists and communities to create new work responding to the Light Night theme of “Journey into the Night Sky” and to explore their own creative responses to the pandemic and how it has affected all our lives. This exhibition shows the outcomes of the 2021/2022 Burnley Light Night project.
Visual artists Fiona Hornby, Jai Redman and Sophie Gibson who have been lead artists on Burnley Light Night from the beginning, all chose to each make a space suit in their own unique styles, their own take on artistic PPE for a 21st century pandemic.
Community groups Adult Connect, Theatre for Change and the ESOL group, all based at Burnley Youth Theatre, all worked with poet Amy Lee Tempest to create poems along the theme of Under the Night Sky, exploring issues of belonging, togetherness and activism.
As Burnley moves into its next phase of arts development, with a new Cultural Strategy coming over the horizon, the future of Burnley Light Night is unknown. We journey on, under the same night sky.
This project is delivered by Burnley Leisure and Culture, with funding from Arts Council England. Supported by Burnley Council and the Heritage Action Zone, funded by Historic England.
