Medway Light Nights 2023

EEA returns to Medway with another edition of Medway Light Nights, a spectacular two-day light extravaganza. The event's co-creation model includes a range of artistic commissions and creative collaborations with local organisations, groups and artists. This year's commissions include 'Pixels' a 2-storey-high interactive installation produced by Lucid Creates and set to illuminate Medway’s naval town of Chatham.

Medway Light Nights 2023 draws on the success of the 2022 event, which attracted more than 60,000 people to historic Rochester.

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Expect illuminated shows and installations that will take visitors on a journey through Medway.
Each display follows the theme of Love Chatham and will be playful and accessible installations celebrating the landscape and local stories. Chatham has a strong, growing creative community and Medway Light Nights 2023 will highlight the town’s historical and current relationship with artists. The commissions will reflect the area’s rich history, diverse culture, and ambitious future of Chatham.

Other confirmed installations at this time include:

  • Nucleus Arts, The Magical Medway
  • Impossible Arts, Lightweight
  • Dream Safari, Thomas Waghorn: Pioneer & Conehead
  • Circadian, Heart Beats
  • Howard Griffin, Moving the Immovable: Electric Chatham
  • Colour Foundry, Patchwork Habitats
  • Circo Rum Ba Ba, Light Ship
  • Bureau of Silly Ideas, Super fiction
  • Medway Gaming Festival, Gaming Projection Challenge
  • Kerrie O'leary, Medway
  • Central Theatre
  • Craig West, Murmur and Site Lighting Design
  • Chatham Library and Community Hub
  • David Tovey, There’s Always Light Within the Darkness
  • Emergency Exit Arts, Fire Laboratory
  • Filaments Art Collective, Connectivity
  • Mark Barnes, Intra Illuminations

Medway Light Nights, a Medway Council event produced by Emergency Exit Arts and supported by Arts Council England.

Lantern procession to launch Medway Light Nights

The event will be launched on the Friday with a lantern procession, organised by Ideas Test, Cohesion Plus and Intra Arts, with hundreds of school children further lighting up Chatham town centre.

To find out more, visit: visitmedway.org/lightnights

Or look out for #MedwayLightNights and #LoveChatham on social media.

Medway Light Nights is a true celebration of Medway’s superb, diverse, and innovative creatives. We are working with Emergency Exit Arts to deliver an even bigger and brighter festival. Medway Light Nights also supports Medway’s cultural strategy, delivered by Creative Medway, and aims for the area to be internationally recognised for its creativity and culture by 2030. The inaugural Medway Light Nights received glowing feedback and we are looking forward to welcoming thousands of people to Medway’s city centre in February for another spectacular event.

Paul Cowell, Head of Culture and Libraries for Medway Council, said:
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Event details

10 & 11 February

Start

Fri 10 February 2023 • 6:00pm

Finishes

11 Feb 2023 • 9:00pm