Major new arts festival coming to campus

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From the 18 to 20 March 2016, the University of Kent will run and host the International Festival of Projections as part of the Beacon Projects. By Matthew Seary.

Held in Canterbury at the University of Kent’s campus and around the city, the festival will be host to intimate installations, performances, celebrated architecture, and ‘spectacular large-scale moving and still image projections’. These will be spread out across the campus, many in public spaces but with some being held in the woodland and more obscure areas, that need to be explored.

The festival will also be witness to a community driven project between the University, the City of Canterbury, and the Cathedral, whereby they will conduct a conversation using morse code and signal lamps. This section of the festival will partake the night of Friday 18 March as 10 public figures will write a ‘one-line hope, wish or aspiration’. Also included will be the community of Canterbury who will be invited to participate, sharing predictions and hopes for the future.

Events include:

• Drive-in cinema with live music soundtrack by cult Japanese band Night of the Stickmen (of Bo Ningen)
• Rare, original magic lantern machines, and beautiful Victorian slides hosted at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, a unique art exhibition of artists’ work.
• An extensive programme of free cinema
• Talks by Directors; from BAFTA winners, and classics, to brand new premieres
• A huge interactive Test Your Own Strength projection
• The Cube, a pioneering use of the new Oculus Rift gaming technology for storytelling

The Festival will be funded as one of the University’s Beacon Projects, which were announced during its 50th Anniversary celebrations. The Beacon Projects are designed to ‘illustrate some of the University of Kent’s distinctive strengths and provide a platform for future activities and aspirations’ and are intended to leave behind a legacy when they finish in the Summer of 2016. The Beacon projects will focus on comedy, architecture, theatre, astronomy, sports, diplomacy, business, philanthropy, arts & science, and projections.

You can see the full PDF about the Beacon Projects here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/beacon/Beacon%20Projects%20-%20Distinctively%20Kent.pdf