Farewell to Lumiere? UK light festival holds what may be its final edition

"A field of blazing flowers bloomed in front of Durham cathedral, a net of pulsing green light arched over the market place, and the traffic control signs were warning of global warming and mass extinctions. Farewell to Arctic ice and the Queenwood shrub frog, they read, and they might have read farewell to Lumiere. For three nights and one last time, the much admired-and imitated-Lumiere festival is bringing joy, crowds and international light artists to the dark winter streets."

"After a review by Durham County Council, which part funds the festival, the decision was announced last month that Lumiere's lights are being turned off once and for all. This is after 16 years and nine festivals, with all events entirely free. Reform, which took an astonishing 65 of the 98 council seats in May on a promise of drastic cost cutting, has been widely blamed-but in fact the review was announced by the previous Lib Dem-Conservative coalition council."

"Helen Marriage, the director of Artichoke, puts the death of Lumiere in the context of a lack of funding for culture stretching back decades in the UK, and a failure to convince politicians that the arts are the breath of life, as important as bin collecting. "The arts have always operated on a shoestring, but now somehow we've lost the plot", she says."

A major free light festival in Durham has been permanently cancelled following a council review after 16 years and nine events. The festival attracted an estimated 1.3 million visitors and is credited with adding about £43 million to the local economy. Costs rose from £650,000 at inception to £2.5 million most recently, funded by Arts Council England, Durham County Council and contributions raised by the public art charity Artichoke from 101 supporters. Political change and promises of cost-cutting formed the backdrop to the decision. Festival organisers attribute the closure to long-term cultural funding declines and political indifference.

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