i Light Marina Bay festival to extend to civic district with installations at Esplanade Park
The annual i Light Marina Bay will return this year with its first foray into the civic district, extending beyond its usual foothold at Marina Bay.
Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the sixth edition of the sustainable light art festival will include 6 installation works at Esplanade Park.
Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore at the media preview on Tuesday (6 Feb), Jason Chen, Festival Director and Director (Place Management) of URA, said, “Our intention is to invite the community to come down to this precinct. We realised there are very nice locations beyond the immediate waterfront promenade we can extend the festival to and (hence) our first foray into the Esplanade Park area. A lot of the artworks are featuring elements related to nature – the park environment is the perfect setting for that.”
Chen said the park setting also “sets the stage for something we are planning to do in 2019”, adding that an announcement would be made during the festival launch.
Following closely on the heels of yet another light art festival in the civic district – Light to Night, which was organised by the National Gallery Singapore – i Light Marina Bay will run from 9 March to 1 April this year.
Regarding how different i Light Marina Bay is, Chen said, “i Light itself has its own unique offering and in this case we are just stretching and expanding the footprint a little bit beyond the waterfront promenade. The festival is also taking place at a different time.”
The showcase of 22 light art installations from 14 countries includes works such as Milk Bottle Cows, which comprises recycled milk bottles in the shape of cows of various sizes by Singapore architect BP Loh, which can be found at the Esplanade Park.
Other works include Urban Rice Fields, an immersive installation by private education group Raffles Education, which creates a sensory experience of walking through rice fields for visitors.
New programmes for this edition include Illumi Fest Run where participants will be splashed with glow-in-the-dark water as they experience various activity zones such as a slide and a Splash Box.
Singapore’s biggest carnival, the Prudential Marina Bay Carnival, is also collaborating with GastroBeats, a festival hub which debuted in i Light last year.
This year GastroBeats will be located at the Promontory and present a neon playground for all food and music lovers to enjoy, with the Star Flyer ride in the backdrop. Visitors can look forward to new activities such as LED-lit hula hoop stations, and glow-in-the-dark renditions of familiar games such as hopscotch, chess, tic-tac, jenga, floor pong, twister and paintball.
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