{{ mediaArticle.articleTypeName }}
'Light connects ever since the beginning of time'
Light festival GLOW attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Time after time it is a race against the clock to provide everyone with a spectacular experience. Innovation is hereby key. This year the festival expands its boundaries, literally. With the light project "Urban Skin" GLOW travels into the Brainport region through projects on prominent buildings in Geldrop-Mierlo, Oirschot, Best and Waalre. They reveal the identity of the villages and converge on another prominent building, the birthplace of the festival: the Catherina Church . "It matches the path we are taking," says director of the light festival Ronald Ramakers: "GLOW is made by and for the city and region. With GLOW we are a festival for everyone, light art for all inhabitants."
With funds from the Region Deal, GLOW is working on renewal and professionalization. That money is much needed indicates Ramakers. "True innovation is difficult to achieve from the existing funding. "For a festival like GLOW, this serves as a accelerator and that is pure gold." With the funding we have, for example, already committed to attracting an even more global audience.
GLOW labs
We also developed GLOW Labs: physical places in the city where companies or students come together with professionals to work on new, modern light artwork. That local really sets us apart from other light art festivals," said director Ramakers. Another goal was to professionalize the organization internally. 'We are still working on that. We are makers and tend not to put ourselves first,' laughs Ramakers.
Into the region with Urban Skin
From Nov. 11 to 18, the festival will go outside Eindhoven's city borders for the first time, with projections in Geldrop-Mierlo, Oirschot, Best and Waalre. Carole Purnelle is director of the Portuguese artist collective Ocubo, which is overseeing the project called Urban Skin. 'You can see a city or village as a pile of stones, but if you look closely, it is the inhabitants who give a place character. Hence the name Urban Skin. People make a hometown.' For Urban Skin, Purnelle is developing a program in which recordings, photographs and videos come together in projections on local buildings. In Oirschot, for example, this is the church and in Geldrop an old textile factory. 'The projections reflect the identity of each village in its own way and tell stories by or about residents.'
Light art made for and with everyone
Besides the local buildings, the projections also converge on the Catharinakerk in Eindhoven, the birthplace of the festival. From the city to the village, and back again. And so the circle is complete, says Ramakers. 'I really hope that visitors will visit the villages. After all, in Brainport we meet on an economic level, or on small social levels. But with GLOW we touch another whole other level.' This year the city of Eindhoven and surrounding villages, next year the whole Brainport region? Ramakers is ambitious. 'I see this year as a pilot. It may be that in the future we can be found in many more villages and cities. Then GLOW will really be a regional event, with even more visitors. Exactly the goal we have in mind: bringing people together.'
