Yoko to show work at illuminations festival

ARTIST and social activist Yoko Ono will exhibit during LightPool Festival at Blackpool Illuminations.

The festival, which takes place from Friday October 28 to Wednesday November 2, has received £48,000 in additional funding this year from the Arts Council’s National Lottery funded Grants for the Arts.

On the penultimate week of the yearly event, visitors will be invited to the six night-long festival to view more than 30 art works from local, national and global artists.

The exhibition will include Ono’s piece Parts of a Light House (1965), which will sit in the nave of Blackpool’s Sacred Heart Church.

“I’m thrilled that Parts of a Light House will be realised for the LightPool Festival”, said the wife of the late former Beatle John Lennon.

Ono will also exhibit her new IMAGINE PEACE, love yoko (2016), as an update of her billboards produced for New York City in 2001 in response to the September 11 World Trade Centre tragedy.

This work will be shown on Blackpool’s historic North Pier, alongside a static IMAGINE PEACE billboard, similar to the design displayed in Washington DC in 2009.

“I hope that the message of IMAGINE PEACE: Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace, will bring hope, comfort and light to all those visiting this wonderful festival during the holiday season.”

Each night, there will be performances from various artists on St John’s Square, including FireWorks Collective, a troupe who exhibited at this year’s Burning Man Festival.

All the installations will form an illuminated trail which will be highlighted on a specially designed map available to visitors so they see all of the festival.

Alison Clark, Director North, Arts Council England said, “This Festival is a wonderful platform to showcase exciting and unusual work that will delight audiences.

“Light Festivals are growing in popularity in the UK and Europe, and it’s great to see Blackpool, with its wonderful illuminations history, as part of this growth.”

The event is free to attend.

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