London Road's chance to Shine
What and where: Shine on London Road: Saturday 7 December
A series of art installations are appearing in London road in the run up to Christmas.
Shine on London road is supported by the city council, the arts council and Portas to highlight the businesses, restaurants and shopping in the area.
The scheme is part of the Portas Pilot project and Small business Saturday and aims to boost the areas economy in the run up to Christmas.
Chair of the Economic development and Culture Committee Geoffrey Bowden said; “This is a terrific event which brings together artists and business, it’s what we are becoming famous for in Brighton & Hove and shows how creative input can help to regenerate an area and give businesses a boost in the run up to Christmas.”
Five new art-works will be installed in London Road and be in place from 7 December to 5 January. These works celebrates London Road as a sustainable vibrant community and shopping area and provide a unique alternative to Christmas lights.
reCyculture - Night Bikes
Five glowing bicycles appear from a rooftop on London Rd, frozen in mid-leap. A large & bold, sculptural installation, which will be seen along the length of the street. High impact and highly visual, the installation will put the bicycle at the heart of the new London Rd.
Presented by the creative team behind Bicycle Ballet ( and a London Road resident)
Exploring Senses – Hidden Toys
Exploring Senses CIC (ES) helps to inspire children and young people to engage in education, sustainable materials practice, digital making, and to become active citizens. They will run two sessions of ‘toy-hacking’ workshops in the Fusebox for local young people. Images of the toys created will be projected onto a wall in London Road, but the images will only be revealed when a passer by walks past. This project fuses community arts practise and digital arts.
Digital Funfair – Light Hearted
A heart shaped chain of led lights is mounted high in the trees on Circus Parade. At street level, under the kissing statue, there are two hand rails placed a few metres apart - far enough so that one person is unable to hold both rails at the same time. When two or more people connect the two hand
rails the heart lights up and the longer they hold the more sequences the heart goes through.
Paul Matosic –Trees
Paul Matosic creates stunning installations out of reclaimed polystyrene packaging, animating them with LED lights to create magical sculptural installations that also illustrate how much unrecyclable waste our white goods generate.
Karen Tilley and Esther Springett – The London Road Jingle
Local artists Karen and Esther will create a unique soundscape for London Road using found sound, words and song from local people and community groups. This will be mixed into a festive soundscape which will be installed in a variety of listening stations along the London Road.
Same Sky, the arts and event charity based in London Road are offering mentoring, artistic input and technical support to the commissions.
The ‘launch ‘ of the art works will take place at 6pm.
During the afternoon between 2pm and 6pm there will be small scale musical and choral performances and events up and down the high street highlighting that London Road has changed and is changing.
This will include Meet the Artists events with Lucid Design who are designing the archways for the Open Market and Jon Mills who designed and made the Ghost Train
BACKGROUND
There are a number of different initiatives and projects that are happening that are changing the social cultural and economic identity of the London Road area.
‘Shine on London Road’ is part of the Portas Pilot project and specifically part of the ‘Arts Events pledge’: to boost the night time economy following the example of White Night.
Portas has also established a Town Team made up on local businesses and traders and appointed a Town team Co-ordinator. As part of this a Cultural Strategy group made up of some of the key cultural organisations in the area has been established. This group steers the development of the arts and cultural programme on behalf of the Portas Pilot. The group reflects the established and the new cultural agents of the area and is made up of:
• Duke of Yorks cinema
• Emporium – a new theatre and restaurant in the old Methodist Church
• Moksha – a long standing cafe presenting talks and exhibitions and a previous White Night partner
• Phoenix Gallery and Studios
• ONCA – a new gallery on an environmental theme
The aim is to raise awareness amongst shoppers over the Christmas period that London road is changing and the draw attention to the new retail, leisure and hospitality on offer.