LightNight 2018
The LightNight festival, which takes place on Friday 18 May this year, promotes the city’s arts and cultural offer to people who may not usually engage with the arts. The 2018 theme is Transformation, with exhibits and installations reflecting upon the transformative nature of the self and the world around us.
LJMU is a principal sponsor, and the University has a host of activities and performances lined up around campus and at partner venues.
LJMU John Foster Building and Gardens (Entrance via Hope Street opposite Everyman Theatre/13 Annexe)
Codex: The well of lost plots, 5.00 – 10.00pm
John Foster Drama Studio
Performances on the hour, every hour. Each performance lasts 20 minutes with the last performance at 10.00pm. An exploration of stories and their power to transform our lives. This performance uses light, sound and multi-media to create a truly sensory experience.
A short trip to a distant planet, 5.00 - 10.00pm
John Foster Building
A dark corridor. Red light. An immersive video installation featuring two, life-like, sleeping babies, who are each hooked-up to a strange computer, as they escape a decaying planet.
Transforming spaces and places with dance, 5.00 - 10.00pm
John Foster Drama Theatre
Performances on the half hour, every hour. Each performance lasts 20 minutes with the last performance at 10.00pm.
Take a break in the LJMU Social Space with its eclectic mix of fun and functionality, indoor lawn, trees, and colliding tables.
LJMU John Lennon Art & Design Building
The Polar Bear Waltz LightNight Commission, 6.00 - 10.00pm
Johnson Foundation Auditorium
Performance times – 6.00pm, 6.45pm, 7.30pm, 8.15pm, 9.00pm, 10.00pm
LOCATION, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing us today. Join in with these fun activities and find out how you can reduce your environmental impact. Create glaciers and watch them melt. Discover more about carbon and take an atomic journey through a planet’s carbon life cycle.
What is the Universe made of? 5.00 - 9.30pm
Discover more about the elements within stars and how the Universe has evolved over time. Take part in hands-on experiments using spectrometers.
Pitch yourself against the professionals, 5.00 - 9.00pm
Game times: 5.00pm, 5.40pm, 6.15pm, 7.10pm, 8.30pm
Just how fit are professional footballers? Take part in our small-sided football game and see how your work rate and performance compares to Premier League players.
Please note: if you wish to participate, please bring appropriate footwear and shin pads
What if fairy tales existed? Performance times TBC
Architecture installation using light and sound in response to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, giving viewers an alternative interpretation of the distorted places illustrated in Lewis Carroll’s literature
Exploring the human face, 5.00 - 9.30pm
Explore the ‘transformation’ of faces and gain a better understanding of anatomy and the fusion of art and science. Join Face Lab and Surgical-Art UK for a series of interactive activities exploring the human face.
FabLab, 5.00 - 9.30pm
Discover the wonders of 3D printing with LJMU’s FabLab Team.
Take a break in the LJMU Social Space with its eclectic mix of fun and functionality, indoor lawn, trees, and colliding tables. Grab a bite to eat plus drinks and snacks in the café.
Floating Rooms & Gardens, Performance times TBC
The Library Foyer
LJMU dance students stage improvised performances, featuring projections and new musical compositions. Some performances will transform University buildings, offering different perspectives and views on the same work; others explore, for example, the impact of feminism or individual neuroses on people and the world around us.
Transform your thinking, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Test your lateral thinking with a selection of puzzles, brain-teasers and quick quizzes provided by the Academic Skills Team, who help our students all year round with creativity in their academic work.
Celebrating 20th century female comics, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Come along and make a badge, dress up for a Polaroid cover photo, design an outfit or just re-read some of your favourite comics and magazines like Bunty, Judy, Jackie, Vogue
Black to the Future, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Another chance to see the very popular exhibition held at Liverpool Central Library on the history of the black music clubs in Liverpool.
Take a break, read a book, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Explore books in LJMU’s leisure reading collection. Discuss the benefits of reading for pleasure with librarians and tell us about your own favourite books.
Free tea, coffee and biscuits and other refreshments will be available throughout LightNight.
DigiArt, 5.00 - 9.30pm
Interactive exhibit exploring 3D reconstruction of cultural heritage and how drones are used to create 3D models.
Liverpool Medical Institution
Professor Van Helsing’s Wunderkammer, 5.00 - 9.30pm
Delve into our Victorian cabinet of curiosities, featuring stereoscopes, zoetropes, praxinoscopes as well as unusual creatures such as mermaids, fairies and vampires.
Recreating Shakespeare’s Globe in the North, 5.00pm
Discover the alternative Shakespeare story focusing on Prescot in Knowsley, the only English town outside of London to have a purpose-built indoor playhouse in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
Presenting gender, 5.00 - 9.30pm
Explore the fascinating lives of three women who lived, worked and married as men in the 19th century through press cuttings, court records, census data, pamphlets and ballads.
For the love of vinyl - Jazz Café, 5.00 - 10.00pm
Bring along your favourite vinyl and chill out in this one-night-only music lounge in the Everyman Street Café. A must for vinyl lovers of all musical genres. Expect tunes celebrating black music clubs in Liverpool as part of LJMU’s Back to Black Exhibition.
