Accessibility

A world premiere for Bristol Light Festival, Ascendence is a life-sized projection of an astronaut floating amongst a cosmos of blooming flowers and imaginary stars. This interstellar installation is a serene space to relax and think about our place in the universe.

• There is a gentle musical soundtrack to this installation.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation, the installation is a projection onto a gauze.
• The installation is located inside a church and there are wooden bench seats for you to rest and enjoy the installation.
• There may be queues to enter the church on busier evenings (weekends are usually much busier than weekdays). If waiting in a queue is difficult for you please make yourself known to one of our stewards wearing White High Visibility Vests to be moved to the front of the queue.
• There is step free access to this installation, with a small ramp to access inside the church.
• The ground is hard standing concrete slabs
• Plan to spend about 20-30 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos, but you are welcome to stay longer.
• The nearest parking is Trenchard Street, NCP Charlotte Street and Bristol’s College Green car park (4 hr parking limit).
• The nearest accessible toilet and community toilets are at Watershed, 1 Canon’s Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX. Located on the first floor, there is a lift.

This installation is inspired by the ‘Good Idea’ print series, with a love note to Bristol enshrined in huge, eye-catching pink
lights.

• There is no sound at this installation.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation.
• This installation is a passive sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• The installation is located in an open air.
• The installation is next to the waterfront, please be careful not to lean over the waterfront bollards.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo!
• There is step free access to this installation
• The ground is hard standing concrete slabs
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days
• The nearest parking is at Temple Meads Station
• The nearest accessible toilet is on platform 3 of Temple Meads Station.
• The nearest public / community toilets are located at Hole In the Wall, 2 The Grove Bristol, BS1 4QZ which is about 10 minute walk away.

Elysian is a series of colossal inflatable illuminated arches which can be walked through and under. It aims to provide a unique spatial experience, an invitation to explore your environment in a new and playful way.

• There is gentle sound at this installation.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation
• This installation is a giant inflatable sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• This installation is outdoors in the open air.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo!
• There is step free access to this installation
• The ground is hard standing concrete slabs
• The Elysian arches are wide enough to fit a wheelchair and double pushchair through
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days.
• The nearest parking is at Cabot Circus, Dale St, Bristol BS2 9AB, which is a five minute journey from the installation.
• The nearest accessible toilet is at Cabot Circus, where there is also a parent and baby room and family room.

Emergence is a huge, mirrored sanctum, completely reflective to provide audiences with a new perspective of a once-familiar space. Intended to act as a place of contemplation amongst the chaos of the outside world.

• There is sound at this installation.
• There are no strobing lights at this installation, but there is gentle light changes.
• The sculpture is covered in mirrors, which reflect patterns of light, and create new and interesting views of Bristol.
• This installation is outdoors in the open air. It is a circular sculpture which you can view from the inside and outside.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo.
• This installation has a hearing loop for members of the audience who use hearing aids.
• There is step free access to this installation
• The ground is hard standing concrete slabs
• The gap to enter the sculpture is wide enough for a wheelchair but not a double pushchair buggy. There is a small ramp on this entrance.
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days. On busier days a queue system may be implemented to access the inside of the sculpture.
• The nearest parking is NCP Bristol Broadmead, Lower Castle St, Bristol BS1 3AF
• The nearest accessible toilet is at Cabot Circus, where there there is also a parent and baby room and family room, or in the Galleries (until 6pm).

Immerse yourself in the giant inflatable bubbles which have appeared in College Green. Evanescent encourages us to playfully explore our delicate world with a sense of wonder and delight.

• There is a gentle soundtrack at this installation.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation.
• This installation has no interactive elements, it is a passive sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• The installation is outdoors, in the open air.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo!
• The installation is located on the grass, we have laid trackway for ease of access.
• You can move underneath and through the bubbles, they are wide enough to fit a double buggy / wheelchair
• There is step free access to this installation
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days.
• The nearest parking is Trenchard Street, NCP Charlotte Street and Bristol’s College Green car park (4 hr parking limit).
• The nearest accessible toilet and community toilets are at Watershed, 1 Canon’s Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX. Located on the first floor, there is a lift. They are approx. 5 minutes from the installation.

Immerse yourself in Pulse, a 40-metre-long audio-visual installation made up of more than 14,000 individual LEDs. Step inside enormous rings of light and experience a new perspective on Bristol. This is Loop collaborated with audio artist Dan Bibby to create the soundscape for this piece.

• There is music at this installation, 20 minutes of gentle ambient music followed by 5 minutes of sound with a more intense beat.
• There are no strobe lights, but there are flashing lights at this installation
• This installation has no interactive elements, it is a passive sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• The installation is next to the waterfront, please be careful around the waters edge.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo!
• There is step free access to this installation
• The ground is hard standing concrete slabs
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days.
• The nearest parking is at Millennium Square Car Park, Canons Way, Bristol BS1 5LL
• The nearest accessible toilet and community toilets are at Watershed, 1 Canon’s Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX. Located on the first floor, there is a lift. They are approx. 5 minutes from the installation.

Bristol Light Festival’s very own Swing Song is back! A set of six interactive swings which light up and play music as you swing back and forth. Fly high for a crescendo or go low for more ambient vibes. The swings play a set of tracks which have been produced especially for Bristol Light Festival. One swing controls the bass line, another controls the melody, and a third controls drums and percussion. Small movements produce simple tunes, but as users swing higher and higher the tracks evolve into more complex melodies.

• This is a noisy installation with music and colourful, flashing lights.
• The nearest accessible toilet is located in Watershed (about 5 minutes away).
• Each individual swing has a weight load of 120kg, and the seats are 570mm wide
• There is step free access to this installation
• The artwork is installed onto the grass on Queen Square.
• The artwork is also viewable from the hard standing pavements. The grass underneath the swings have been covered with protective trackway.
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days. On busier nights there will likely be queues of up to 90 minutes to ride on the swings.
• The nearest parking is on Queen Square – street parking with accessible bays available.
• The nearest public / community toilets are located at Hole In the Wall, 2 The Grove Bristol, BS1 4QZ which is about 10 minute walk away.

The Nectary invites visitors to immerse themselves in nature and hear “the hum of the earth” as they mimic a pollinating insect, visiting six huge glowing flowers handcrafted from recycled packaging materials. Each flower is filled with the sounds of pollinating insects, which were captured through research into a new way of monitoring insects called ‘bioacoustics’ conducted at the University of Leeds.

• There is Sound at this installation, you can hear a soundtrack of bees as you put your head inside the flower sculpture.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation.
• This installation has no interactive elements, it is a passive sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• Multiple people can enter each flower at a time, but this is quite an intimate space so best shared with friends.
• There is step free access to this installation.
• The ground is uneven, with trackway used to cover the grass areas and cobble stone paths.
• There are flowers suspended at various heights which allows for wheelchair access.
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days. With queues implemented at busier times.
• The nearest parking is on Queen Square – street parking with accessible bays available.
• The nearest public / community toilets are located at Hole In the Wall, 2 The Grove Bristol, BS1 4QZ which is about 10 minute walk away.

The ruins of Temple Church are illuminated in this brand-new work for Bristol Light Festival, set to the title track from Hannah Peel’s No. 1 Classical Chart Album, which was written for and featuring Bristol’s own Paraorchestra.

• There is a music track playing on a loop at this installation. It is peaceful, classical music
• There are no strobe lights at this installation, but there are bright, moving lights.
• This installation has no interactive elements, it is a passive sculpture for you to enjoy at your own leisure.
• This is a great location to stop and take a photo!
• There may be queues to entry the church on busier evenings (weekends are usually much busier than weekdays). If waiting in a queue is difficult for you please make yourself known to one of our stewards wearing white high visibility vests.
• There is step free access to this installation, with a small ramp as you enter the church
• The ground is a mix of hard standing concrete, cobbles and trackway overlaid on grass.
• Plan to spend about 20 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days, and there may be a long queue to enter the Church at these times.
• The nearest parking is street parking, on Victoria Street
• The nearest accessible toilet is inside Left Handed Giant, approximately 10 minutes from the installation.

Take a walk on the wild side as animals escape our TVs into the streets around us. Left Handed Giant has been transformed into a giant retro television set (a nod to the types of TVs that the first BBC Natural History Content was
broadcast on over 60 years ago) but watch out for the animals who have escaped the screen to the surrounding area.

• There is sound at this installation. On the main “TV” there is a music track which plays on a 7 minute loop. For the animal installations, there are ambient soundscapes which play.
• There are no flashing lights at this installation, it is a projected artwork best seen after dark.
• The installation is outdoor in the open air.
• We anticipate that this installation will get busy and may implement a one way system through the artwork on more popular nights.
• There are hardstanding ramps to the bridge. The bridge is made of wooden slats, they have traction grips.
• There is step free access to this installation
• There is a grit and slab pavement route to the installation on the cycle path (turning off Bristol Bridge on the Castle Park side of the river)
• Plan to spend about 30 minutes at this installation to look at it and get photos. The installation will be busier at weekends than week days.
• There is a car drop off place on Bath Street, (turn down Hawkins Lane from here to reach the bridge – no steps and wide large slab hard standing ground)
• The nearest accessible toilet is inside Left Handed Giant, adjacent to the installation.