Tripping the light fantastic for Listowel’s Festival of Light
IT certainly achieved what it set out to do in terms of increasing public engagement with art, fairly lighting-up the hearts of everyone who witnessed any of the amazing displays of colour – from the Forest of Light to the many multimedia events that ran at venues across Listowel.
This was the second year of the Festival of Light/Féile an tSolais, last year’s inaugural event exploding in a riot of colour onto the Kerry calendar in what was billed as the first of its kind anywhere in the country.
Year two went even better, with many more events bringing even more out – from its wet opening on Halloween night to Saturday’s culmination. The hard-working young organiser – including Listowel’s Paul Gerard O’Connor who conceived the whole thing, said they were delighted with the response once more.
And they were very clear in their reasons for coming up with the event. “In an increasingly isolated rural society, public art and public engagement is a vehicle for bringing people together, the participatory process is very beneficial for self confidence, for self-esteem and for general wellbeing. Festival of Light encapsulates this concept with an interactive programme facilitating new encounters with art.”
A range of technologies were deployed to do so, from the projection in the Garden of Europe’s Forest of Light to Virtual Reality, pop-up installations and much more.
It also brought a range of noteworthy artists to Listowel, including filmmaker Paul Duane – whose latest documentary on former KLF frontman-turned-artist Bill Drummond, Best Before Death. This was screened at St John’s and followed by an interview with the director himself. It was one part of an impressive film programme the Festival also mounted.