Enlighten

The weather wasn't kind this year for the Balloon Festival (the balloons only managed to lift off on 2 out of the 10 days!) but was a little better for Enlighten. Unfortunately we weren't able to squeeze in a mid week after work trip and instead faced the crowds on Friday night. Actually it wasn't too bad really.

Meeting up with Aoife, Cath and Eoin we first set about finding food. The big curly potato chips and delicious waffles were hits with the kids. For the adults it was a green chicken curry which topped the favourite list.




As the sun slowly sank, we made our way to the edge of Lake BG, to see the Cloud exhibit. It was very cool! Made from 6,000 repurposed incandescent light bulbs with pull strings switches hanging down appearing like rain. As advertised in the Enlighten program, Cloud highlights through social interaction and collaboration that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The kids were oblivious to this fact as they were memorised with pulling the strings to turn light bulbs on and off!

Continuing along the lake's edge, we made our way to the furthest point of Enlighten, the Art Gallery arriving just as the Versailles inspired images lit up the wall.

Next it was on to the Portrait Gallery where one could enter a Photo Booth to have their face projected on the wall. Again another clever idea to involve people in the festival. If the line wasn't so long, we might have joined in too!





As we meandered up to Old Parliament house, we bumped into ladies in lit up dresses on stilts looking fabulous as well as a trio of angels flittering around in the dark!

 

On the way to Questacon, Aoife showed us the torsion waves sculpture which demonstrates the transfer of energy perpendicular to the the direction is travels. The girls had fun making torsion waves.













We watched the images flash on the Questacon walls and bumped into Susie, Patrick and the cousins! Only after we walked past the corner of Questacon did we realise that this display was best viewed at the corner as the image projected onto both walls!



The Pedaleando Hacia El Cielo Parade made it's way around. Consisting of four ladies in enormous billowing white dresses blowing kisses and throwing confetti whilst propped up on a bicycle driven contraption. They were quite a sight set against the darkness of the night.

Making our way towards the National Library and the car....we briefly stopped at the Wings of Freedom. In this display, 180 butterflies symbolising change, creativity, soul freedom, joy and colour were neatly arranged. As it was getting late, we didn't have time to interact with these butterflies via our phones.

Finally we reached the National Library, the last building with a projection on it. The girls were distracted or rather memorised by the glow sticks being launched into the air on a nearby lawn by a whole heap of children. Keen to get home to bed due to imminent meltdowns, Cath appeased the girls by purchasing a few of these glow stick launchers to be used at a later date. And so we made it to the car without fuss ending a lovely evening with friends.