In 10 days the Wellington waterfront will be brilliantly illuminated with events and exhibits celebrating the LUX Light Festival.

Around a dozen light sculptures and interactive installations will bring lightness and brightness to the capital when LUX switches on with a mix of design, art and technical innovation aimed at surprising, delighting and captivating audiences after dark.

The festival, being run for the seventh time, is anchored around two distinct precincts featuring a range of national and international artists – including Massey University staff and students from the School of Design and School of Art at the College of Creative Arts.

Massey is a founding partner and artwork sponsor of the festival that heralds the onset of the New Zealand winter.

The two precincts for LUX are:

• Frank Kitts Park – a fun-filled space for the young at heart with colourful, engaging and interactive installations including three student exhibits; SEED, a contemplative multi-layered flora form sculpture; KINESIS an audio-visual installation that uses projected film, light and sound; Pom and Pom, comprising two giant round clusters of illuminated coloured strands that move around the festival site in unpredictable ways accompanied by a dancer.

• Te Ao Marama – Māori artist precinct by the Wharewaka in collaboration with the i Light festival in Singapore.

In addition, Frank Kitts Park will the location of a Massey MoshPit designed by staff and students that is located in the refreshment hub of the festival. The MoshPit demonstrates the talents of the University’s emerging designers, fine arts students, musicians and media artists. A VJ (visual jockey) will work alongside a DJ plus a light designer to offer a multi-sensory experience of sound and light that is designed to involve as well as entertain.

School of Design senior lecturer Antony Nevin, whose individual work features at the light festival, says LUX uses light as a device to bring a diverse range of people together in the autumnal evening highlighting new perspectives on the city.

“LUX offers the students the opportunity to take concepts beyond the studio and into the world. They get to experience all the blood, sweat and tears that it takes to take a design work from concept through to opening night,” he says.

“Along the way they are mentored by internationally recognised artists and designers and experience the nitty grity of working with the diverse range of professionals who help make LUX come to life.”

Mr Nevin also leads a paper associated with LUX called Creative Works for Festivals and Events.

The paper asks students to devise a contemporary design project that can be pitched to producers while being mentored by artists and designers who exhibit nationally and internationally.

College of Creative Arts Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Claire Robinson says as a founding partner of LUX, the festival demonstrates Massey’s leadership in creative arts education, research and teaching.

The University’s College of Creative Arts is ranked number one for design in the Asia Pacific region by global award agency Red Dot and is ranked in the top 100 art and design institutions by international benchmarking educational ranking organisation QS Quacquarelli Symonds.

“It is exciting to see Massey so well represented among the exhibitors who now have the opportunity to see their work showcased to more than 105,000 visitors,” Professor Robinson says.

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