Festival lights up historic city

Advertisement

The four-day festival will light up the city's cathedral with projected images from the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Durham City's historic buildings and streets are to be lit up as part of a unique festival created by artists from around the world.

"Lumiere" is the work of Artichoke, the events company behind Liverpool's giant spider, and the Sultan's Elephant and the Fourth Plinth project in London.

The four-day festival will begin on Thursday evening.

The event's central exhibit will light up the city's cathedral with projected images from the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The sound and light show draws on the history of Christianity in North East England.

Other creations include Nine Men Drawing - nine huge recreations of prisoners' sketches depicting their feelings about their incarceration.

And Chorus is a series of eight huge swinging pendulums of light, suspended high in the cathedral nave.

On Friday, French theatrical magicians, dressed in white and balanced on huge stilts, will invite visitors through the streets, and on Saturday evening the city will see a parade of fire and flame effects.

Durham is bidding to become UK city of culture in 2013.