Glow Winter Arts Festival...

I'd never heard of the Glow Winter Arts Festival until a week or so before I went (it had only been in existence for 5 years), and unless Flashie had alerted me to its existence, I would probably remain blissfully unaware of its existence.

And that, my friends, is how you use the word 'existence' three times in one sentence.

Flash and I had been hanging out all day doing Things, and as we hadn't finished trading insults yet, we decided to go. That makes sense, doesn't it?

First launched in 2014, the festival is a feast of illuminated signs and artworks and is held in Central Park gardens, Malvern East from dusk(ish) until ten(ish).  The sun was well gone by the time we arrived so it was quite dark and the evening was in full swing. We wandered around oohing and aaahhing and generally behaving like excited 4 year olds and the only bummer about the evening was.....no donuts! Boo!

Wonderdome – be mesmerised by the changing of the globe(s)….

Mandylights are really good at creating light based productions and stage sets (think Vivid Sydney, Auckland’s Harbour Bridge Vector Lights, that sort of thing), and this is very cool. From a distance, the Wonderdome just looks like thousands of tiny lights hanging in the sky. Then they start to move and pulsate, converging and changing colour over and over.  It's a party in a dome!

Secrets of the Golden Elm Tree

Building projection specialists The Electric Canvas gave us Secrets of the Golden Elm Tree – twinkly, shimmery lighting goodness projected onto the trunk and branches of the tree. These guys do White Night Melbourne, various stadium events and Sydney Opera House projections (eg: Vivid, Diwali, Remembrance Day) so lighting a tree was probably a 5 minute job for them.

Art group The Indirect Object created Minor Disturbance – an installation of sculptures, light and soundscape that explores the ocean and the plastics that have made their way into it. The sculptures are made using recycled plastics.

Minor Disturbance

String Symphony by Leon Hendroff/Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is a giant marionette contorted via 12 ropes operated by volunteers and Glow punters. There’s 600 odd LED lights and over a kilometre of rope bringing this bloke to life.

String Symphony

And last but not least, inflatables! Coloured Inflatables! With lights in them! Yay!  Pilbara artists Sharon and Kaye Warrie teamed up with Goldberg Aberline Studio to create Red Air, a celebration of the Pilbara Desert landscape.