Bristol Light festival launches to brighten up city

The Nectary is an art and science crossover, highlighting the importance of pollinating insects

Wild animals, an astronaut and a giant flower are among the installations at a light festival this month.

Bristol Light Festival returns to the city on 2 February and will wrap up on 11 February.

Running from 17.00-22.00 BST every evening, the festival will brighten up the city with the works of artists from across the globe and clips from the BBC's Studios Natural History Unit (NHU)'s archive.

The event is free.

Ascendance is one of the installations brightening up Bristol this month

Katherine Jewkes, creative director at Bristol Light Festival, said the use of the wildlife footage in the festival is a "really exciting moment"

During this year's festival, the project WILDLIGHT will transform clips from BBC wildlife shows into life-size projections, reflecting more than 60 years of the Natural History Unit.

Bristol brewery Left Handed Giant, in Finzels Reach, will be transformed into a giant TV set, with life-size animals escaping the screen to the surrounding area.

Bristol Light Festival 2024 will run across 10 days and two weekends

The artists behind the exhibition Evanescent hope to appeal to human beings’ universal playfulness

Emergence is a huge, mirrored structure designed to "provide audiences with a new perspective of a once-familiar space"

Bristol Light Festival was founded by the Bristol city centre Business Improvement District (BID) and is being run in partnership with the Redcliffe & Temple BID.

Tuppence Stone, series producer and director at BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU), said the NHU wanted to "showcase wildlife in a new way".

She said: "Who doesn't want to see a huge humpback whale jumping, or the brilliance of fireflies dancing across a building? BBC Studios NHU is proud to be Bristolian and it's time to let the animals out of the TV."

Temple Church will be lit up in pink as part of The Unfolding within the festival

A map of the art installations at Bristol Light Festival

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