La Compagnie Carabosse: Fire Gardens (2012)
The fire gardens in Campbell Park were a multi-location installation of metal structures, towers, bowls and machines all filled to the brim with fire and embers, rendering them red hot as they blazed and smoked away in the evening/night.
This was the first major IF installation that really ‘wowed’* me and therefore has stuck in my memory as my favourite IF component in the 14 years I’ve been photographing the Festival. I think it was also one of the largest attended (10,000+?), aside from large crowd-based shows, over its three days.
Weaved in and around the planted and sloped areas each turn was a discovery, as live music played and drifted across the park. This drama of light, heat, sound could be experienced close up with, as I recall, no intrusive barriers or overt health and safety nannying despite the volumes of people, besides a page at the back of the festival brochure, which everyone read obviously. What an absolute, unfettered joy.
This chosen image, if I’m honest, doesn’t really covey the total drama and power of some of the sculptures, but does give an abstract sense of the unusual anticipation as you entered the fiery gardens as the sun was setting. It also features the former pond that is now the location for the MK Rose feature which was constructed some two years later.
*a ‘wow’ event or performance for me is one that can stop me photographing. Normally I’m so detached as part of my professional need to focus on image capture and not missing a thing I don’t really let myself really experience the installation/art/music/comedy/whatever. Sometimes however, the content just overwhelms the detachment…IF can do that, whatever level your hurdle.