10 Sep Community invited to art workshops in lead-up to Whanganui’s Lights on Bikes parade
By Staff Reporter at the Whanganui Chronicle.
Sarjeant Gallery Educator Sietske Jansma helps workshop participant Ethan with his jellyfish lantern for the Lights on Bikes parade.
Artworks created by the community will be a feature of this year’s Lights on Bikes parade.
The parade will be held on Friday, September 27, and in the lead-up to the free family event, the community is invited to participate in art workshops.
One workshop has already been held at Sarjeant on the Quay, with participants using card, bubble wrap and ribbon to create illuminated jellyfish with seed lights spiralling down through the tentacles.
“We now have a shoal of jellyfish lanterns tucked away in a storeroom, ready to be strung under a tree in the upcoming parade,” Sarjeant Gallery education officer Sietske Jansma said.
Two more workshops will create artworks for display along the parade route. At the first workshop, participants will construct hanging paper flowers, lit with seed lights, and at the second, a large display of glowing leaves, vines, flowers and imaginative plants.
“We’re also running workshops geared towards helping people create stunning costumes to wear in the parade,” Jansma said.
“There’s the opportunity to make cardboard body armour zig-zagged with illuminated wire, an electrical storm cloud that hovers around your bike helmet, or a fantastical hat that lights up and shows a silhouetted scene.”
Families decorated their bikes and themselves at the first Lights on Bikes event in 2018.
Lights on Bikes event manager Shanti Sibbing says this year’s parade will start at the Whanganui River Markets area on Taupo Quay, where there will be food trucks and large floats.
Participants can gather from 5pm with the parade starting at 6.30pm.
The parade will travel alongside the Whanganui River to Cornmarket Reserve near the Dublin St roundabout. Participants will have the option of turning around there or continuing over the bridge to Kowhai Park.
“We expect to see bicycles, scooters, buggies, unicycles, skateboards, wheelchairs and more – everyone is welcome to light up their wheels and themselves and join in,” Sibbing said.
“Along the way we’ll have glowing art installations and mesmerising performances from local and national performers.”
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