Exclusive: The Awakening returns with ‘magic, beauty & playfulness’
A GLIMPSE OF WHAT’S TO COME: Part of an installation featured in this year’s Awakening. Picture credit: Malachy Luckie for UNFURL
Hull’s newest arts festival The Awakening was a spectacular event that drew over 100,000 people to the city centre when it was staged for the first time last year. Simon Bristow spoke to Mikey Martins, artistic director at event organisers Freedom Festival Arts Trust, about what to expect when it returns next month
Something “magical, beautiful, and very playful” will happen in the city centre in March when Hull’s newest arts festival, The Awakening, makes its welcome return.
More than 100,000 people saw last year’s inaugural two-night event, which celebrates the transition from winter to spring and draws on Hull’s maritime heritage, folklore and mythology.
The Hull Story is delighted to reveal this year’s Awakening will take place on the nights of Friday, March 17, and Saturday, March 18, with an additional ticketed gig on Sunday, March 19.
Freedom Festival Arts Trust, which organises The Awakening, will announce details of the programme in the coming weeks, but we can confirm the sensory spectacular will include:
Three “giant” rabbits appearing at the Rose Bowl near Queens Gardens
A “beautifully-lit” Queens Gardens filled with flowers and fauna
Creative robotics in Zebedees Yard
Music and film at Ferens Art Gallery
A special folk gig from Hack-Poets Guild at Social in Humber Street
Interactive light games in Trinity Square
A special live performance by Broken Orchestra, featuring Vicky Foster, at the Ferens.
There will also be a wider programme of music with a special edition of Trinity Live in partnership with Trinity Market and Sesh Events.
Giving a flavour of what to expect, Mikey Martins, artistic director of Freedom Festival Arts Trust, said: “From last year we are very excited. We are now very much establishing this as an annual event for the city. From our side of things it still feels like we are building that up, still building it in people’s minds so they know it happens and they can look forward to it every year.
“It really is about creating something magical, particularly for families. It’s very beautiful and very playful and fantastical. There’s a really fun, playful element.
“It’s a quiet time when people haven’t been out much – right, let’s all come out again and have some fun in the city centre and bring it to life, particularly in a family-friendly way.”
Borealis by Dan Acher at last year’s Awakening
In keeping with the event’s reputation for staging world-class installations and performances, The Awakening will again include contributions from national and international artists alongside some of Hull’s finest homegrown talent.
Queens Gardens is being transformed by Liverpool-based Lantern Company in what will be the last major event the space will host before its renovation to become a key route of the Hull Maritime project.
“With the flowers and fauna, this is really pushing into the spring part of this which is the whole thing around The Awakening, to make this time of year a special thing next to the Spring Equinox [March 20],” Mikey said.
“And with Queens Gardens, it’s their relationship with the maritime part of this [Queens Gardens is a former dock]. This is the last thing that will happen to Queens Gardens before it goes under the gardener’s knife.”
He added: “The other important thing about The Awakening is this is a unique event for Hull where people come out as a community to celebrate the transition from winter to spring, but wider than that we are also exploring those themes of a maritime city, particularly its relationship to nature and water and the seasons.”
The rabbits are part of an installation called Intrude by Parer Studio, whose head office is in Tasmania, Australia, but also has production houses in Chicago, Catalonia, and Guangzhou.
The robotics installation, called UNFURL, is by Bristol-based Air Giants, and reacts to the people around it. In Trinity Square, Light Games appears courtesy of Groupe LAPS, based in Montreuil, France.
Deblozay by Rara Woulib at last year’s Awakening
The Ferens, which like many bars and restaurants will be staying open later than normal, offers another chance to see the RE:SCORE films. These feature footage from the British Film Institute and Yorkshire Film Archive and are accompanied by original scores by local musicians, including two of Hull’s biggest emerging bands in Low Hummer and LIFE.
The Awakening is a free event and will be centred around Queens Gardens, Whitefriargate, Trinity Square, Trinity Market, and Zebedee’s Yard.
Audiences are again being encouraged to make and wear Fox Masks when they venture out into the night to enjoy the event. To support this aspect of the festival, some 25,000 make-your-own Fox Mask packs will be distributed to primary school children via their schools in the week beginning February 27.
Mikey said: “It’s just really exciting because it feels like there are a lot of other events around the country, a lot of light festivals, but what we are doing with The Awakening is different; there’s a narrative underneath it that is very much of Hull, a folky treatment of it. These are the elements of it you’ll see developing over the next few years even more.”
Freedom Festival Arts Trust are working in partnership with Hull City Council to deliver The Awakening, with support from the Shared Prosperity Fund, the Government’s Levelling Up Fund, Hull Maritime, and the Heritage Action Zone.
Councillor Mike Ross, leader of Hull City Council, said: “Last year’s event was a huge success. It was great to see so many people enjoying themselves, supporting the local economy and getting involved with the creative programme around the city centre and Old Town.
“We’re delighted to be able to bring The Awakening back for 2023 and collaborate with Freedom Festival Arts Trust again, bringing international artists to the city and creating something special for us all to celebrate the changing seasons and the city’s rich maritime heritage.”
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Unlike other mediums such as theatre, there can be no dress rehearsals for large-scale events featuring simultaneous performances and live artworks in a public setting. So organisers only get to see how well it works along with everyone else when it’s actually under way.
Recalling last year’s Awakening, Mikey said: “The thing that struck me the most was the calmness. There was this atmosphere about it because of the artworks. There was this ethereal, elemental side to it. It was exactly two years since the beginning of the pandemic and it was the first major event.
“I think also it felt like the Freedom Festival where the audience becomes incredibly familiar. That was a joy, to see those two things combining. It was one of those moments you get sometimes when you think, ‘Oh, this is good, this is worth the hassle’. That never gets old, never gets tired, when you see so many people having a good time.
“The audiences here are brilliant; they’re really generous and appreciate when things are good creatively. They have seen a lot so you can’t pull the wool over their eyes. They want to be challenged.”
Looking ahead, Mikey said: “There are some brilliant traditions all over the world that celebrate this movement of winter to spring and I think it’s become a bit lost. What we’d like to do is create a new tradition for Hull. We’ll get there.
“I would like The Awakening to become a proper bucket list event. I want it to become something people come to from far and wide.”
More information will be released on the website www.theawakeninghull.co.uk, via the social media channels @FreedomFestHull and with the hashtag #AwakeningHull