6.30pm – 8pm, Bute Street, Luton
On Friday 9 December, Lead Artist Mark Titchner will launch Beacon (2016). This striking illuminated work for the gable end wall of The Hat Factory Arts Centre will become a visible beacon and recognisable icon for Luton. Utilising one of the artist’s trademark texts, commuters, local people and visitors will greeted by the slogan ‘If You Can Dream It, You Must Do It’.
Schedule
6.30pm Introductions and welcome in Connors Café Bar.
6.45pm Launch of ‘Any Dream Will Do’ by Polly Apfelbaum at Luton Train Station. This large billboard will accompany a poster series that will be gifted to attendees.
7pm Unveiling of the ‘Beacon’ with Mark Titchner. Music by accordionist, Joe French.
7.15pm onwards Explore Sarah Baker’s ‘Sixth Floor’ in the Storefront and see ‘Expect Even Better’ by Jennifer West and ‘Mother and Child (Luton)’ by Scott King on the Culture Wall.
Also launching on 9 December
Sarah Baker Perfumes will transform Luton’s aptly named Storefront into an escapade for your senses, where you can let yourself be swept away into a world of decadence and desire. Come to the glamorous launch of the ‘Sixth Floor’ and indulge in this new line of fragrances while enjoying the unique art installation featuring customised windows and a perfume counter.
‘Expect Even Better’ by Jennifer West
Jennifer West will create four works where featuring words and slogans taken from corporate tech slogans such as ‘Disruption’ and 18th century Dutch sayings ‘Expect Even Better’ overlaid digitally onto painted, scratched, printed and splattered scrolling 70mm filmstrips. The analogue marks and effects create a delirious backdrop to the text slogans. These works will appear looping as large scale video projections on the Culture Wall.
‘Any Dream Will Do’ by Polly Apfelbaum
Polly Apfelbaum will produce ‘Any Dream Will Do’, a series of new poster-works produced exclusively for Luton town centre. A large billboard poster will be positioned outside of Luton’s central railway station, while three other smaller works – ‘Pataphysical Dog’, ‘A is for Animals’ and ‘Celtic Animal Zodiac’ – will be produced in an unlimited edition to be taken away and reposted around Luton by visitors to the town’s new cultural district. In addition, a limited print, in the form of a tea-towel calendar for 2017 titled ‘Pink Giraffe’, will be made for the project in collaboration with Luton’s Guildford Street Press.
‘Mother and Child (Luton)’ by Scott King
Scott King has involved local people to reconstruct Henry Moore’s famous series of sculptures ‘Mother and Child‘, works that were made during the 1920s through to the 1960s, and which became a staple for civic public sculpture during the post-war era in the UK.
Titled Mother and Child (Luton), new images taken by photographer Aleksandra Warchol will result in a series of projected impressions of families from the local community, a selection of which will be shown on the Culture Wall in December 2016
