CITY OF LIGHTS

Truro’s Community Lantern Festival

Join us for a night of lights on
Tuesday 20th November at 7:00pm

route
Castle Street, River Street, St Nicholas Street, Boscawen Street,
Green Street and Lemon Quay.

Photo © Alex Scheele

This year, the magical City of Lights festival and parade in Truro’s City Centre takes place on Tuesday, 20th November starting at 7pm.

With the theme of ‘Nadelik Kernewek’ or ‘A Cornish Christmas’, this uniquely collaborative community arts event and a key fixture in Cornwall’s annual festive calendar, promises to rival last year’s spectacle enjoyed by around 15,000 visitors.

Leading up to this year’s event, a host of beautiful themed large-scale lantern sculptures for the parade will be created by a team of 13 professional artists working with around seventeen schools, 2 colleges, 3 community groups, 5 youth groups and others from across the city and beyond.


Photo © Alex Scheele

New partnerships and sponsors
Without the valuable support from its sponsors and partners, the City of Lights festival and parade would be impossible – and this year the festival is delighted to have some major and exciting new partnerships as its foundation stones.

As well as the production partners who lead on the work all the year round, this year’s partners and major sponsors include Truro Cathedral, Skinner’s Brewery Shop, Community 1st Cornwall, The Eden Project, Truro City Council, Creative Partnerships and KEAP, and First Devon & Cornwall Travel, who have all invested in what they see as a key element to Truro’s and Cornwall’s community winter celebrations.

Partner - Truro Cathedral
The cathedral is hosting an all-day community lantern making workshop on November 3rd and in partnership with artist Ellie Williams will also house one of the massive lanterns, created for the building’s unique space as well as for the procession, as part of an ongoing reminder of the celebration and themes.

Photo © Steve Tanner

The Lantern to look out for: Ellie Williams’ Angel Gabriel
Ellie Williams is creating a spectacular angel form that celebrates the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. The service is a traditional form of Christmas worship that is today used all over the world, but its roots lie in Truro with the first bishop of Truro Cathedral Edward White Benson who created the format in 1880. Ellie says: “My initial response is to create an image of The Angel Gabriel - a character who features within the readings told at the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols yet also appears throughout a variety of stories from other, non-Christian religions. I believe that the image of the Angel Gabriel, regardless of beliefs, resonates with many people as a symbol and celebration of Christmas. Through the drawing process I plan to respond to the narrative from within the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols - the service which charts a series of events from the fall of Adam through to the birth of Christ.”

Partner - The Eden Project
The Eden Project is very closely involved with this year’s event which links in to their own A Time of Gifts celebrations, taking place from November 30 to Jan 6, and sharing the theme of ‘a Cornish Christmas’ with the warmth and community spirit that the festive season brings, and with the outdoor landscape transformed into a spectacular winter wonderland, the ice rink surrounded by fir trees laden with snow and twinkling lights, a fire pit, festive marketplace and a host of Cornish Community Choirs.

Three lanterns, created by three diverse artists - Claire Summerson, Tony Crosby (lead artist on City of Lights) and Jill Hudson – are not only forming part of the City of Lights parade but will also travel to Eden to become an integral part of the Time of Gifts after their debut.

Photo © Steve Tanner

Tony Crosby’s Angel Lantern at Eden
Tony Crosby says: “My lantern is the figure of an angel proffering gifts, based on the idea of generosity and giving. I’m thrilled that it is to be hung in the Warm Temperate Biome after it has appeared in the City of Lights parade. It’s great that the idea of a Cornish Christmas being a ‘time of gifts’ is so perfect for the partnership with Eden and their own Time of Gifts – it couldn’t have dovetailed better, everything is so hand in glove and there’s lots of synchronicity this year.”

Claire Summerson’s St Day Carol Lantern
Claire Summerson says: “My lantern, made of withies, tissue paper, bamboo, lights and wire, has been inspired by the place that I live, referring to some of the architectural features of The Old Church in St. Day. The idea is loosely based on 3 stained glass windows, supported on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and illustrating the words of the St. Day carol, describing holly and its different colour berries: ‘Now the holly bears the berry as white as the milk, And Mary bore Jesus who was wrapped up in silk, And Mary bore Jesus Christ, our saviour to be, And the first tree in the green wood, It was the holly.’ “

Jill Hudson’s Stargazey Tree Lantern
Jill Hudson says: “I have taken the celebration of a Cornish Christmas and focussed on what has been one of the core vocations of the Cornish economy, epitomising Cornish heritage. Christmas is a time for reflecting on what has been during the past year, along with hopes and promise for the New, and maybe also, what you might like for Christmas. Cornwall, surrounded by the sea, has an ongoing relationship with its powerful nature and temperament. Its harvest is hard won and, sometimes plentiful, sometimes spare, has an underlying influence on many facets of Cornish life.

“In this aspect of a Cornish Christmas, I have envisaged a fisherman’s dream, a stargazey sea, where fishing boats can pick their catch easily from a Christmas tree. Leaping fish and fish tails will make up the body of the tree, emulating the pointed branches, while atop the tree, resting on the sea of fish, will sit a Cornish Lugger, which traditionally would have fished for pilchard and herring, and is now eagerly awaiting Christmas.”

Main Sponsor – Skinner’s Brewery Shop at Newham Quay, Truro
Managing Director Steve Skinner is delighted to be supporting the festival this year, and has cemented an interesting connection with one of the main lanterns which is being created by artist Reg Payn.

“The atmosphere of the event is always amazing,“ Steve says. “My wife Sarah and I have such fond memories of the festival and are very keen to support it. We felt it was appropriate that we could support the festival through our brewery shop – it’s a time of gifts and of sharing, and what better way to help support such a festive time of year for the City of Truro? We’re thrilled we can support such a positive cultural activity for our city.”

Reg Payn’s ‘Cornish Piskie Meets Santa’ Lantern
Reg Payn is creating a lantern, destined for the Skinners Brewery roof along Newham Quay after the City of Lights procession has taken place, and which can only be described as ‘A Cornish Piskie meets Santa’ – something to cause quite a stir among visitors to the Newham Quay shop!

Reg says: “This lantern will be a walking hybrid of a Cornish Piskey and Saint Nicholas - or Santa Claus - carrying a sack full of stars spilling out into the night, symbolising the natural treasures of Kernow and its folklore.”

Main sponsor - Community 1st
Community 1st Cornwall have a particular local interest in community projects as they are the Truro based company overseeing the delivery of the flagship Truro Health Park development on the site of the old city hospital, and are sponsoring schools involvement in the festival this year.

John Craig, spokesperson for Community 1st Cornwall, said: “The parade provides a unique opportunity for us to be involved with the local community, and we are delighted to be able to support this exciting event once again this year. We have already been engaging with the Truro community through Arts for Health to bring creative and artistic thinking into the new Health Park, and the parade is always a superb example of how imaginative and inspirational the local community can be.”

More lanterns to look out for…

Caroline Cleave’s Dove of Peace
Caroline is to create a giant dove - an image which transcends all cultures and is a universal symbol of love and peace, usually depicted carrying an olive branch recognised as a sign of hope for the future.

Caroline says: “The sculpture I wish to create will embrace all these ideas but I will substitute the olive branch with a garland made up from the elements of Cornwall - fronds of seaweed entwined with fish and fauna – which gets larger and becomes part of the bird’s tail, a swirling wave like fusion which mirrors the sea, full of energy movement and life.

“Visually the idea is that the bird is rising up from, and carrying, the beauty of Cornwall and the fragility of our environment into the New Year. Hopefully this will also echo the current environmental concerns we are all facing on a more global scale.”

Mydd Wannell’s Light House Woman, and Tom Barnecutt Watson’s Fire Horse
Artists and makers Mydd Wannell & Tom Barnecutt Watson are working with students at University College Falmouth to create 4 student lanterns, as well as creating two spectacular lanterns of their own design. These two neo-mythical figures rework themes and ideas of light and dark. The first, Mydd Wannell’s Light House Woman, is charged with keeping the light from the sea, with her entourage of fish and with a wake trailing behind her in the waters, protecting the ships from the wreckers. The second, Tom Barnecutt Watson’s Fire Horse, is the light of the miners, hidden deep in the earth, fire in the darkness, and life in the dark of winter.

Truro’s Lander Gallery in Lemon Street Market, also supporting this year’s event, will host four University College Falmouth lanterns which will be taken to the venue straight after the finale for installation. Proprietor Simon Hendra says: “We’re delighted to support the City of Lights once more, and to seeing the festival becoming such an integral part of Christmas in Truro. We’re also very much looking forward to the lanterns arriving in the gallery and market after the parade, seeing what magic the artists have conjured up this year!

“We get so many visitors who ask questions about the lanterns - how they are made, and who makes them; regular visitors to Truro always say they look forward to seeing what’s coming, and bringing their friends and relatives, particularly school children. It’s particularly great to be reminded of the lantern parade throughout the year, something the large lanterns do so well with their extraordinary presence in the market and other venues. It’s a great way of making the magic last a little longer.”

Production partners
City of Lights 2007 has been organised by The Works Dance & Theatre Cornwall, Kernow Education Arts Partnership, Truro City Council, Truro School of Samba, representatives from Devon & Cornwall Police and independent professional artists and musicians.

Other sponsors and partners
Other partners and sponsors for the 2007 event include the Royal Cornwall Museum, First Buses, Arts & Business, the Territorial Army, The West Briton newspaper, SpecSavers, HSBC, Goodenough Shoes, John Rabey Solicitors, Carlyon & Son Solicitors, Plaza Cinemas, St Austell Brewery, Winter Rule Accountants, Creative Edge, Barclays Bank and Natwest Bank.

Artist Jill Hudson says: “In a culture where gradually we have less and less contact with the community, the festival, the celebration and the procession of City of Lights are a great opportunity for all those involved and something that I feel very proud to take part in. there is a great sense of achievement for the children who have created their lanterns in school and who can now show them to the crowds who come to watch, while the procession alongside artists and community groups, creates a wonderful atmosphere of celebration and community.”

For more information on the procession and the work leading up to it, contact The Works on 01872 261770.