Cutting edge projections, poetry and live music will bring Hull’s historic Queen Victoria Square alive with colour and sound this spring as the city hosts the first event launching the UK’s “most ambitious celebration of creativity to date”.
Hull is one of five places to be staging About Us, a spectacular, never-before-seen, free open-air event that combines live performances and multimedia installations to celebrate the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present day.
It will be the opening event for UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of creativity taking place across the UK in 2022, and one of 10 projects that make up the nationwide celebration.
Transforming Hull’s landmarks into canvasses for animations and projections, About Us will take place in Queen Victoria Square, Hull, from 30 April until 6 May 2022, and feature poems and Scratch animations from young people from schools in Yorkshire, across England and the rest of the UK.
The 25-minute projection shows will immerse audiences in an exhilarating journey through 13.8 billion years of history since the dawn of the universe in a celebration of the infinite ways in which we connect to the cosmos, natural world, and one another.
With Queen Victoria Square in the heart of the city centre as the backdrop, the inspiring art installation is set to be one of the highlights of the year and will also include live music.
Acclaimed composer and musician Nitin Sawhney CBE – who has scored more than 60 films – has composed the original score, which will be performed as part of the live shows by Hull Freedom Chorus.
Martin Green CBE, who knows the city well having been director of Hull UK City of Culture 2017, is the chief creative officer of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.
He said: “UNBOXED is the UK’s most ambitious celebration of creativity to date and this free spectacular performance will show us what can be achieved when we harness the creative power of scientists, technicians, producers, musicians, poets and mathematicians to produce and present a truly extraordinary and inspirational experience, that audiences, and the choirs and young people who have contributed, will never forget.”
For more details about the project see https://unboxed2022.uk
For all other tourism information about Hull, see www.visithull.org
Photo: We Are Hull, 2017 © Thomas Arran