Inspire Youth Arts mesmerise over 7600 people at Light Night 2023: Re-Move

On Friday 3 and Saturday 4 February, Inspire Youth Arts once again took over St Mary’s Church in Nottingham with their Light Night installation: Re-Move, attracting over 7636 people over the weekend.

Re-Move is an immersive sound and light installation exploring the human consequences of climate change and disaster displacement.  It filled the beautiful architecture of St Mary’s church with an evolving journey of synchronised light and sound.

‘Climate change is the defining crisis of our time, and disaster displacement one of its most devastating consequences. Entire populations are being displaced due to slow onset environmental processes such as drought, wildfire, sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, flooding, and agricultural disruption.

Re-Move is an engaging and abstract reflection on the journeys taken by those affected, the human impact, and the action and inaction of how we are dealing with this all-encompassing crisis.’

Artist Urban Projections, and Composer and Sound Designer CJ Mirra, continued their collaborative journey, co-creating this year’s installation with Inspire Youth Arts and young people from across Nottinghamshire, for Nottingham Light Night 2023. Visitors also enjoyed performances from the St Mary’s Choir on Friday 4 February.

The piece is a continuation of work from Light Night 2022 where ‘States of Matter’ explored the effects of climate change on our planet’s fragile relationship with water. Building on last year’s scientific lines of enquiry, this year’s work explored the human consequence of the climate crisis.

Re-move was created in collaboration with Dr Tom Vickers, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University and author of Borders, Migration and Class in an Age of Crisis (2019, Bristol University Press). It draws inspiration, and uses audio samples, from Tom’s work with refugees in the UK.

Over the last fifteen years Tom has used a focus on borders and racism to examine how exploitation, oppression and resistance operate across fields including employment, volunteering, social work & social care, and the media.  

Credits

Commissioned by: Inspire Youth Arts

Artists: Urban Projections & CJ Mirra

Co-Creation: Yeoman Park Academy & Proto-Type

Workshop Lead: Tom Shawcroft

Partner: Dr Tom Vickers (Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University)

Technical Partner: Sterling Event Group

Audio Samples: Courtesy of Dr Tom Vickers & Nkosilathi Nyathi: A next-generation solution to the climate crisis | TED - Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non-Commercial–No Derivatives.

With thanks to: St Mary’s Church

Photo credits: Leo Dawson and Neil Pledger

Funded by Inspire Culture, Learning and Libraries, Arts Council England, Nottinghamshire Music Education Hub, and Peoples Health Trust.