Oliver Jeffers book signing, art and Minecraft workshops, samba band performances and a two-day showcase of artists and composers in Bangor’s The Court House will mark the closing weekend.
Our Place in Space, a recreation of our solar system as an 11.8 km sculpture trail designed by artist Oliver Jeffers, astrophysicist Professor Stephen Smartt and a creative team led by Nerve Centre, will conclude its year-long UK tour this weekend (25–26 March) with an epic programme of free events.
Central to the celebrations is a two-day showcase of Constellations of Noise, a programme of artistic intervention delivered across Northern Ireland by Dumbworld as part of the Our Place in Space project.
Constellations of Noise saw eight musicians, including Rory Friers, Áine Mallon, Dee Isaacs, Steve Davis, Rose Connolly, Úna Monaghan, Aidan O’Rourke and Jamie Thompson, work with a diverse range of communities to create a cosmos-crossing set of sound and visual experiences. Traditional music, opera, free-form improvisation, film, song, extraterrestrial radio, poetry and theatre have collided for this unique spectacle.
For one weekend only, the artists’ work will go on display at The Court House in Bangor, featuring alien language radio stations, immersive sculpture and audio installations, film screenings, interactive operetta, and live music. The venue will be open from 11am–6.30pm on Saturday 25 March and from 11am–5pm on Sunday 26 March for the public to visit.
A free evening of live music featuring Rois, Steve Davis and Shane Latimer, and Aidian O’Rourke and Brìghde Chaimbeul will also take place at The Court House on Saturday 25 March.
Elsewhere, Oliver Jeffers will take part in a free book signing event at the Ulster Transport Museum on Saturday 25 March from 1pm where fans can meet the author and get their favourite book signed. Copies of Meanwhile Back on Earth, the intergalactic new book from Oliver Jeffers and inspired by Our Place in Space, will be available to purchase on the day.
Bangor will also play host to a programme of workshops during the closing weekend including Minecraft adventures with Nerve Centre’s Creative Learning Centres, Messy Mornings with Boom Studios, postcard creation with Seacourt Print Workshop and samba performances with Beat n’ Drum.
For more information and to secure free tickets for any of these events visit: https://ourplaceinspace.earth/whats-on
The weekend is also the final opportunity to visit the complete Our Place in Space sculpture trail which has already been experienced by more than 1 million people across the UK. Free to visit and beginning in the grounds of the Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra, the trail weaves its way onto the North Down Coastal Path and ends at Pluto in Bangor.
Stretching over 11. km, the installation features scale models of the Sun and planets, recreated as contemporary art sculptures. Colourful arches house each planet with an arrow and the name of the planet lit up in Las Vegas style lights. At a scale of 591 million to one, the Sun is 2.35 metres across, Earth is 2.2 centimetres and Pluto just 4 millimetres.
Our Place in Space invites participants to consider how we might better share and protect our planet in future and what is the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’? The project aims to bring our solar system down to Earth and send us soaring into the stars to find new perspectives and reconsider what it means to live life on our planet.
The trail is accompanied by the free Our Place in Space augmented reality app, available on Apple and Android, which allows users across the world to take a journey through the solar system, experiencing the planets in augmented reality and considering 10,000 years of human history on Earth. On the trail, users are invited to collect space souvenirs, including characters from the world of Oliver Jeffers, as well as launch a personalised star into space.
After 26 March, the first half of the sculpture trail will remain a permanent fixture at the Ulster Transport Museum where visitors will still be able to journey from the Sun to Mars. The Our Place in Space app can be used by visitors to complete the journey along the coastal path using augmented reality to view the outer planets as they journey through space.
David Lewis, Executive Producer at Nerve Centre, said: “The public response to Our Place in Space during the last 12 months has been extraordinary — from those visiting the trail and gaining a sense of perspective to an epic events programme featuring leading voices in STEAM and digital and creative workshops for tens of thousands of young people across the UK. We’re excited to mark the final weekend with the opportunity to experience the work of artists from the Constellations of Noise music programme and to cap off a truly cosmic year of activity.”
Our Place in Space is commissioned by Belfast City Council. Led by Nerve Centre, the project is a collaboration between Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, National Museums NI, NI Science Festival, Big Motive, Taunt, Microsoft, Jeffers & Sons, Dumbworld, Live Music Now and Little Inventors.
Our Place in Space was originally conceived through a research and development project and presented as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, co-commissioned by Belfast City Council. UNBOXED was designed to celebrate creativity and innovation, with funding from the Northern Ireland Executive, UK Government, Scottish Government and Welsh Government.