By Olivia Swash
Turner Prize nominee and controversial leading member of the Young British Artist movement Tracey Emin will be the highlight of this year’s Lumiere festival. Emin’s neon work will star amongst 30 installations by local, national and international artists and light designers using light art to illuminate the nooks, crannies, bridges and buildings of Durham‘s historical city centre.
The light festival, organised by Artichoke, returns for 4 nights in November at the cordial invite of Durham County Council after their previous successes enticed 75,000 people to the city to witness the unique illuminations.
The globally-acclaimed and oft misconstrued artist is most famous for her ‘My Bed’ piece, which was presented at the Tate Gallery as it was when she had spent many days within it feeling suicidal because of relationship issues. Her Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 piece also raised eyebrows with an assumed euphemism- a tent with an interior jigsawed together from appliqued names of relatives she has slept next to, sexual partners, and her two aborted children.
Details of Emin’s neon contribution to the festival is still under wraps, although is rumoured to be one of the main pieces exhibited at her major solo retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery earlier this year. She has previously donated neon work to auction for charity and in 2007 her neon Keep Me Safe reached over £60,000.
Lumiere will catch your eye between 17th – 20th November around Durham city.
