We’ve long been interested in light art and keen to explore this kind of land art further, so when the Piece Hall in Yorkshire contacted us about running family workshops it was a great opportunity to use light art to engage with the fantastic architecture of this famous Georgian building.
The Sand In Your Eye team visited the Piece Hall in nearby Halifax a few days earlier to do a recce and run some tests amongst the colonnades and in the main piazza to see what was possible, it was lots of fun running around with torches and glow sticks and they found it was perfect for all kinds of light art. Somebody even found the time to write his name!
On the evening of the light art workshops, families gathered in their warmest coats to have some fun lighting up the courtyard. It’s best to do light art in winter or early spring as it gets dark earlier, but mid April worked fine and as it was the Easter holidays everybody was allowed to stay up a little late.
Working as a team, the families made some spectacular shapes and formations around some of the features found in the Piece Hall, including the sculpture The Blanket by artist David Murphy.
The photos were beamed onto a screen in the building so the participants could see results almost instantaneously. On a dark, cold night the glowing lines lit up and activated the walls and columns and brought this fantastic building to life.
We’d love to use this interesting kind of engagement workshop to explore and animate more buildings around the UK, it’s a really fun activity for people of all ages and abilities. As it uses light art, it is really low impact and easy to organize, very cost effective and great for highlighting the beauty of buildings.
