Nelson festival fights dark nights
The darkness of July nights will be put to good use in the upcoming Light Nelson festival, which will illuminate the city and help banish winter malaise.
Last year, 16,000 people turned up at Queen’s Gardens for the inaugural festival which fuses art, science and technology in its magical light displays.
The event’s success means this year it will spread into surrounding areas, with 50 artists working on 40 installations that cover media and art forms including laser technology, digital imagery, performance, fire, poetry and music.
The children’s participation event, Float a Wish, is held at Queen’s Gardens tonight. The lights for Light Nelson are switched on next week and the festival runs from July 11 till 13.
This year Nelson Intermediate pupils are excited that their art works will be part of the festival and shown alongside the works of national artists.
The students are taking part in Nelson Art Club’s work Ships that Pass in the Night.
Nelson Art Club’s Vicki Smith says the work will tell the story of two migrations – the migration of the endangered long-finned eels, called tuna in Maori, and the migration of people to Nelson across the centuries.
The migration of the eels is part of the art work because the Queen’s Garden was an important food gathering area for tuna for Maori.
Eels carry out an amazing migration, journeying to the warmer water near Tonga to breed.
‘‘One of the things about tuna is they are really long-lived, the long-finned are threatened, and they always come back to the place where their parents lived.’’
Vickie says the story of the migration of people to Nelson will be told from the tangata whenua to recent arrivals.
Those taking part in the installation, including Nelson Intermediate students, have been asked to write a small story about how they arrived in Nelson.
Those stories, and others from the community, will become part of the installation.
Vickie says the intermediate students taking part have a wide range of stories, including some who can trace their whakapapa back to the Tanui waka.
Some had arrived more recently, including a couple of pupils who had come to Nelson following the earthquakes.
One student taking part had only been in Nelson for a couple of weeks.
The students are also making shadow puppets for a light show, based on the themes of weather, waka or the eel.
Vickie says the students have learnt about eels and their own journeys and have created some really beautiful art works.
‘‘We want people to get the
Christchurch sense of the different people in Nelson, the faces they see around them and become more aware of the waterways that surround them.’’
Light Nelson, July 11-13, nightly at 5.30-9.30pm, Queen’s Gardens and surrounds, Hardy and Bridge Sts, plus Albion Square and NMIT Arts and Media building and campus. The Neon synth band performs at the Cathedral at 5.30pm nightly.