A projection celebrating the people, places and memories that shape life in Leeds will feature at this year’s Light Night Leeds on 28 and 29 October.
Call My Name, Call Me Home will be projected onto the façade of The Queens Hotel, combining music, storytelling and animation to follow one person’s life through five decades of change across the city.
The work has been created by Leeds-founded digital storytelling company imitating the dog, working with local musicians Hope & Social. The piece forms part of this year’s festival theme, A City Speaks…, which explores Leeds’ history over the past four centuries and its future.
Simon Wainwright, from imitating the dog, said: “We worked closely with Hope & Social and the lyrics and music actually came first for this piece, with the visuals and animation taking inspiration from the finished song.
We’re storytellers and so our main focus is in creating a narrative with heart that everyone in Leeds can hopefully resonate with.”
Other installations across the city will include holographic owls at Leeds City Museum, inspired by the owl on the city’s historic crest, and neon artworks based on drawings by children in foster families.
Leeds City Library will also showcase items from its collections spanning 400 years of local history, including manuscripts, maps, photographs, films, newspapers and books. A virtual reality workshop will offer another way to explore the collections.
Last year’s Light Night Leeds attracted more than 200,000 visitors across the two evenings, according to the organisers.
This year’s festival forms part of Leeds 400, marking 400 years since Leeds was granted its first Royal Charter by King Charles I.
The event is organised by Leeds City Council, with additional funding from Arts Council England and support from sponsors and other organisations.
Further information and the full programme are available from the Light Night Leeds website.