Festival of Light Returns to Dumfries to Illuminate the High Street

This month will see the second D-Lux Festival bring warmth, light, playfulness and curiosity into Dumfries town centre at the darkest time of the year, where artists explore new ways to illuminate the darkness. The festival will run alongside Dumfries’ annual Big Burns Supper, starting on Wednesday 24^th and finishing on Saturday 27^th January.

One of the D-Lux founders, Robbie Coleman, commented: “We want to use light to celebrate the beauty of our surroundings and, in the spirit of play and discovery, invite visitors and townspeople to imagine what could be possible in Dumfries Town Centre.”

The festival of light kicks off with ‘Town Centre Illuminations’; an after dark playground lighting up Dumfries Town Centre in not-so-obvious ways. From Wednesday 24^th January, ‘Town Centre Illuminations’ will make playful shapes and reinterpret buildings, having fun with the Midsteeple. The event will begin at 5pm and runs every evening until Saturday 27^th January.

Also on Wednesday 24^th, premiering at 6pm, ‘Whose hoose is this’ will turn the Bakers Oven, 135-139 High Street, into a video jukebox created by townspeople, projecting specially made 30 second films in the four bay windows of the former Bakers Oven.  ‘Whose hoose is this?’ is a major commission by The Stove Network for the Midsteeple Quarter Project signalling change is afoot on our high street.

From 6pm on Wednesday 24^th, viewers in the square can select which tracks they’d like to appear on the building online using their smartphones. The event will run until Saturday 28^th April, and during this time D-Lux will be working with groups from different areas of Dumfries to create content for the windows, with regular updates being made to the available track list.

Anyone who is interested in making a film for the event should come along to a filmmaking workshop session, being held on Thursday 25^th and Friday 26^th January from 2pm, or email [email protected] for more information.

The final part of this year’s D-Lux Festival is a new light artwork created by Hannah Fox and Jason Threlfall titled ‘Our Moon’. ‘Our Moon’ is a new projected animation piece for Dumfries, generated from the facial expressions and stories of Dumfries residents. Motion tracking technology is used to digitise the facial movements of volunteers of all ages. Their expressions are then used to animate a computer-generated model and create ‘Our Moon’, who will smile, blink, frown and observe. The ever present but ever-changing moon will watch over the town and its people during the Burns Night celebrations this year, premiering at 5pm on Thursday 25^th of January.

For the second year in a row, Jardine Funeral Directors has made a significant financial contribution towards the running costs of D-Lux Festival. Also for a second year, this sponsorship has received additional funding from Arts & Business Scotland via its Culture & Business Fund Scotland.

Carl Watt, Head of Programmes at Arts & Business Scotland, said: “I am very pleased that Jardine Funeral Directors decided to support D-Lux Festival for the second year. One of the main objectives of the Culture & Business Fund Scotland is to encourage long term collaboration between businesses and cultural organisations by match funding ongoing partnerships in their second and third years.”

D-Lux Producer David Smith added: “The kind support from Jardine Funeral Directors and match funding from Arts & Business Scotland’s Culture & Business Fund Scotland has been vital in allowing us to build the profile of the Festival and has helped to make a positive and lasting contribution to the community.”