Bonfire
Night.

My role: creative director, including Event Concept, Development.
curation, Design & Build.
2017/18/19.

What started as building an impressive bonfire turned in to something much more. Having gone to great lengths to build an extravagant bonfire, I decided to push the boundaries and place the audience into a curated world that amplified their experience.

Burning political effigies seems to make the news but we wanted to unite a community rather than focus on anger. With so much negativity in the papers, what with Brexit and Thrump, we wanted our fire to become a symbol of hope that brought people together without copying pagan ritual or spouting religious prose. Creative conversations begunaropund this notion of community coming together to celebrate but we had to be conscious not to put the attendees out of their comfort zones.

From the moment they left their cars, the audience were surrounded by a soundscape that had been composed specifically for the event. At the registration point, tickets were exchanged for slips of paper with instructions to write “your fears and woes” on to the slip. These fears were to be burnt in the communal fire, hence banishing them and readdressing the balance to a more positive place.

A procession of actors and public dressed in caps and mask made of feathers, holding burning torches, was lead through the event village by a drummer. Navigating between clouds of smoke, collecting the slips as they went, the procession stopped at certain points where spoken word (written specifically for the event) was bellowed through the sound system.

Eventually the procession came to the fire and placed a basket containing all the negative thoughts into it. The fire was lit to a soundtrack that crescendoed in time with the momentum of the fire. As the last flames licked, there was a final piece of prose before fireworks were let off into the night.