After-Dark Puppetry in the Zoo, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Gleaming Installations: Illuminate Adelaide 2024 Has Them All

Sydney knows it thanks to Vivid. Melbourne's RISING makes the same point clear. No matter the place, there's nothing like a city lit up with glowing lights, outdoor art installations and projections in winter. Since debuting in 2021, Illuminate Adelaide has embraced the same idea each year in the City of Churches — and 2024's just-dropped full lineup includes more than 40 works that'll dazzle the city, plus everything from after-dark puppetry in the zoo and a digital garden to Max Cooper and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon.

And Fire Gardens. Back in April, Illuminate Adelaide revealed that the French art collective Compagnie Carabosse would headline the fest with its acclaimed piece, which will fill Adelaide Botanic Garden more than 7000 fire pots, sculptures and terracotta urns. While it'll be the event's scorching centrepiece from Thursday, July 4–Sunday, July 21, the highlights keep coming on the complete program.

Andrew Beveridge

Much of the brightness in the South Australian at Illuminate Adelaide comes via the City Lights program, which will span those 40-plus free site-specific works over 17 days. The class of 2024 features Renaissance artworks coming alive, interactive lights inspired by the moon's phases, the harp becoming a light-and-colour experience, illuminated street furniture, blue fireflies and more.

The World Has Gone Pear Shaped — a large-scale, six-metre-tall inflatable sculpture that turns earth into a pear to muse on humanity's impact upon the planet — is sure to be standout. So is intangible #form by Japanese artist Shohei Fujimoto, which uses lasers, strobe lights, other moving lights and haze to create a multi-sensory piece across an array of rooms. You'll be swinging at Spectrum of Happiness, and as you do you'll create a rainbow.

And Tjarutja Dance Theatre Collective Project's Ngarrindjeri Ruwi tells the Ngarrindjeri tale about Kondili, the whale that projects the spark of fire.

Artec House

Puppets roaming outside have increasingly become a key component of arts festivals of late — Parrtjima in the Northern Territory just proved this true in April — so of course Illuminate Adelaide has incorporated the trend into its lineup. Cue Universal Kingdom: Prehistoric Nights, a brand-new blend of puppetry and animation from Erth Visual & Physical Inc and A Blanck Canvas that'll take over Adelaide Zoo. A glowing dinosaur skeleton with a giant skull and a ribcage that you can walk through, ancient critters wandering along, an eight-metre animated plesiosaur in the sky: they're just some of its elements.

Similarly immersive and built for folks to mosey around is interactive digital garden EDEN, which splashes its nature paradise across 150 square metres of LED screens — and will be accompanied by The Light Room Bar for bites and beverages.

Erth

Bridging the gap between Illuminate Adelaide's art and music bills, Max Cooper's 3D AV gets an Australian-exclusive run. Hindley Street Music Hall will welcome in its audio-visual display, which adapts each performance to its venue so no show is the same as any other.

Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Dutch pianist Joep Beving are also on the program, the former as part of experimental music fest Unsound Adelaide within the broader fest. Its lineup features The Caretaker doing his first Aussie show, plus Yirinda, 33EMYBW, Eiko Ishibash, ∈Y∋ with C.O.L.O. and more.

Danielle Neu

And if that's not enough to enjoy around Adelaide, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, one of the Studio Ghibli great's very best films, is getting a free screening; Patch Theatre's family-friendly Superluminal uses lanterns that change colour in your hand, paired with nature sounds; and Fill the Earth combines physical performance and visual art, plus dance and video, on a 3.5-metre round stage.

Pop-up bar and eatery hub Base Camp is back for its fourth year, too, complete with its own interactive light show, while Live @ The Lab will add more live tunes to the program.

florafaunavisions

Alex Kozobolis

Oscar Lewis

Frankie The Creative

Saige Prime

Samuel Graves

Illuminate Adelaide 2024 runs from Thursday, July 4–Sunday, July 21. Check out the festival's website for the full program and to grab tickets.

Top image: Amigo and Amigo.

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