Green Space Dark Skies participation in Wales

Download the full 'Green Space Dark Skies participation in Wales' press release (PDF)

• Green Space Dark Skies is one of five major projects presented in Wales as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a celebration of creativity taking place across the UK in 2022

• 20,000 Lumenators are being recruited to help create artworks for Green Space Dark Skies in Gower, Brecon Beacons and Ynys Mon Anglesey, and across the UK

• The first of the five UNBOXED projects in Wales opens on 31 March in Caernarfon with About Us. Later this year will see GALWAD: A story from our future, commissioned by Creative Wales.

Across the UK, 20,000 people are being recruited to create large-scale outdoor artworks, including in four of Wales’ most outstanding landscapes, for Green Space Dark Skies, part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, from April to September 2022.

The creative project is the first of its kind in Wales and will be taking place in Gower AONB (13 May), Brecon Beacons National Park (July) and Ynys Mon Anglesey (date tbc), with a finale location to be announced.

The Green Space Dark Skies artworks will be created at dusk by participants, referred to as Lumenators. They will be guided along pathways or waterways carrying smart lights that have been especially designed by Siemens' engineers and will enable digital choreography captured on film, while also being sensitive to the night-time environment. Each short film will incorporate the stories of the people and places featured and will be broadcast online after the event. Lumenators will also be encouraged to share their own connections to the Welsh landscape and the local areas as part of their involvement.

Green Space Dark Skies will enable people from all walks of life to forge new connections with the Welsh countryside by supporting those who experience cultural and physical barriers to experiencing our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to access events. The series of gatherings will celebrate the countryside and people’s right to explore it as well as encouraging our responsibility to take care of it for future generations.

Outdoor art experts Walk the Plank are the lead creative organisation in the production of Green Space Dark Skies.

Liz Pugh, Creative Producer, Wales said: “The focus for the gatherings in Wales is shaped by the geology and the history of extraction – from the neolithic marks on the common lands of Gower to the geopark of the Brecon Beacons to the minerals under the ground on Anglesey. The short films we make in each place will tell a story specific about each location – collectively, we will illuminate how people are connecting with each place right now, in 2022. Sign up to be part of something magical, outdoors, in a place you love and want to cherish.”

Developed by graduate engineers at Siemens specially for this project, the lighting technology uses existing wireless programmable low impact lights and incorporates something that’s never been done before: the ability for these lights to be animated through geo-positioning, where the position of each light can be known in relationship to the others; as well as the potential for this lighting technology to be adopted for use at future major outdoor events.

The Green Space Dark Skies team is working with Dark Skies representatives to explore how the project might highlight issues around light pollution in our towns, cities and rural landscapes to support wildlife to flourish.