i Light Marina Bay 2018 returns with greater community participation

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i Light Marina Bay 2018 returns with greater community participation

Published: 06 February 2018

Come March 2018, i Light Marina Bay will light up the iconic Marina Bay with 22 enthralling light art installations and a myriad of activities that the public can look forward to. This year’s festival will also see greater participation from the community in the creation of sustainable artworks.

Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the sixth edition of the sustainable light art festival will run from 9 March to 1 April 2018, featuring installations created by artists from Singapore and around the world. Designed with energy-saving lighting, recycled or environmentally-friendly materials, the light art installations reinforce Marina Bay’s position as a sustainable precinct and serve as reminders to encourage festival goers and the public to adopt sustainable habits in their everyday lives.

Community to be involved in creation of artworks

This year, the public can look forward to a showcase of 22 light art installations from 14 countries, including Singapore. Three of these installations will be created using used bottles and containers contributed by the community and corporate partners.

Milk Bottle Cows by BP Loh (Singapore) and Transistable Plastic by Luzinterruptus (Spain)

Transistable Plastic by Luzinterruptus from Spain is one such artwork – a large-scale installation created using multiple panels encased with plastic waste to promote awareness of the amount of waste we generate in our daily lives. This artwork requires the use of approximately 20,000¹ PET bottles contributed by the public and corporate organisations². The collected bottles will be vacuum-packed and attached to the installation to form rows of illuminated rotating panels through which the public can walk during the festival. From now until 28 February, the public can contribute their used plastic bottles towards this installation by depositing them at the collection point at the main lobby of The URA Centre.

The artists of two other installations have also kicked off their respective collection drives for used bottles from local companies and cafes to be repurposed in their artworks. Milk Bottle Cows by Singapore-based artist BP Loh aims to encourage recycling and upcycling through a showcase of life-sized “cows” created with some 2,000 plastic milk bottles; while Chandelier of Spirits by Living Spirits from Thailand is a display of suspended glass and plastic coffee bottles, inspired by the morning beverage habits of office workers and symbolising a gathering of Singapore’s workforce.

Kloud by Nanyang Polytechnic (Singapore) and Urban Rice Fields by Raffles College of Higher Education (Singapore)

The line-up of installations also includes six artworks by students from local institutions, including Nanyang Polytechnic, Nanyang Technological University, Raffles College of Higher Education, School of the Arts and LASALLE College of the Arts.

This year, the festival will once again collaborate with overseas light art festivals, further establishing i Light Marina Bay as an international light art festival. As part of the collaboration, selected local and international light art installations will be cross-shared with Scottsdale Canal Convergence in the United States, Bella Skyway Festival in Poland and LUX Light Festival in New Zealand.

For the first time, the showcase of light art installations will extend beyond Marina Bay to Esplanade Park, where six installations will be on display.

The line-up of light art installations this year was curated by a panel of professionals and practitioners from the fields of arts, architecture, urban planning and lighting.

Mr Jason Chen, Festival Director and Director (Place Management) of URA, said: “i Light Marina Bay has grown to become one of Singapore’s signature events, gathering people from all walks of life and bringing greater vibrancy to the precinct. This year, we are involving the community further by inviting them to co-create i Light Marina Bay 2018 with us – be it through the creation of artworks, or supporting the festival by presenting sustainability-themed activities.”

Refer to Annex A [PDF, 1.5MB] for the list of light art installations and Annex B [PDF, 115kb] for the list of the curatorial representatives.

Driving the sustainability cause

Complementing the showcase of sustainable light art installations is i Light Sustainability, an umbrella of initiatives to encourage festival goers to adopt sustainable habits in their daily lives.

Throughout the festival, the public can explore and learn more about the topic of sustainability by participating in a series of talks and workshops. The signature Switch Off, Turn Up campaign, held in conjunction with the festival, will continue to rally corporate organisations around Marina Bay and beyond to switch off non-essential lighting and turn up their air-conditioning temperatures to save energy. i Light Marina Bay’s sustainability focus will also dovetail with the Earth Hour initiative on 24 March when the light art installations will be switched off for an hour during the annual island-wide lights out event.

Four hubs of activities over four weekends

Beyond the visual treat of artworks and sustainability-themed programmes, festival goers can also look forward to a myriad of activities held across four festival hubs.

Held at Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza, ILLUMI Bar – an LED-lit pop-up lifestyle space – is making its debut at the festival. With part of its “furniture” made with reusable plastic tanks to reinforce the awareness of environmental sustainability, friends and family can gather at its lounge and bond over games and activities.

Following its successful launch at i Light Marina Bay last year, Art-Zoo Inflatable Park will return to the festival this year at The Float @ Marina Bay. The imaginative play-garden will feature a brand new line-up of delightful characters for the young and young at heart to enjoy. Ticketing details can be found on www.artzooworld.com.

Also making a comeback this year is GastroBeats, offering delectable food options and music performances at The Promontory. This activity hub will feature a series of programmes and activities throughout the festival, such as LED-lit hula hoop stations, music performances and art workshops. On the final weekend of the festival, this hub will be transformed into a neon-coloured playground to host the ILLUMI FEST RUN where participants will be splashed with glow-in-the-dark water as they experience various activity zones.

The ongoing Prudential Marina Bay Carnival held at the Bayfront Event Space will continue to welcome families and friends to come and enjoy rides, games and performances during the festival.

Refer to Annex C [PDF, 438kb] for more details on the festival hubs and fringe activities held during the festival.

i Light Marina Bay will be held from 9 March to 1 April 2018, 7.30pm to 11pm daily with extended hours to 12.00mn on Fridays and Saturdays, around the Marina Bay waterfront and Esplanade Park. Admission is free. Visit https://www.ilightsingapore.gov.sg/ for more information.

¹This is close to the number of PET bottles produced and sold worldwide every second in 2016. (482.8 billion PET bottles were produced and sold worldwide in 2016, according to market research by Euromonitor International.)

²Approximately 15,000 bottles have been collected from corporate organisations including Changi Airport Group, International Building, Compass Group and Yotel Singapore.