Light Nelson flicks the switch on its third festival on Friday night, promising a bigger, brighter and smoother visitor experience.

Everything from the resurrection of the giant moa, an alien pod landing in Nelson, and the fate of the world will be on show during the four-day festival that begins at 5.30pm tonight.

This year is the biggest to date, with 62 installations scattered through Queens Gardens and the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology campus.

To overcome the crowd problems of two years ago, the route through Queens Gardens will be one-way with entry from Hardy St and exit on to Bridge St. More installations this year have also been spread around NMIT.

Hardy St will be closed off between Harley St and Tasman St, and will become the hub for food, drink and information.

Among its many attractions Light Nelson will feature digital mapping installations by two invited artists.

Daniel Belton's two works Time Dance and Line Dances will screen on the west wall of the NMIT library. Line Dances is inspired by the paintings and drawings of Bahaus artist Paul Klee, but the programme, which has toured internationally, has been adapted for its Nelson site.

Belton's OneOne, using digital cinema projection and Maori instruments, screens in the NMIT Johnny Cash Theatre.

 Jon Baxter's A Trip Into a Nature Of Being is projected on the old technical institute building in Hardy St with digital imagery including Lord Rutherford at work in his laboratory.

In between there are a host of intriguing-sounding projects from local and visiting artists. 

Full Stuff Article - 8 July 2016