SUN: Engaging low science capital audiences through the Lightpool Festival at the Blackpool Illuminations

RWW holds an STFC Leadership Fellowship in Public Engagement (2017-2020) which is targeted on working with low science capital audiences in Blackpool, Lancashire. Consequently, RWW has formed a collaboration with the Blackpool Illuminations team and plans have progressed to the appropriate point where an application for funding is required.

This STFC Spark award will contribute towards the delivery of (i) an installation piece entitled SUN and (ii) an associated PE programme, as part of the Lightpool Festival in the 2019 Blackpool Illuminations. Lightpool is a free arts festival of light and fire that takes place in Blackpool towards the end of October and aims to reconnect Blackpool residents to the Illuminations and create a new cultural offer in the town. In its first year, close to 50,000 people participated across six nights.

With this in mind, the overall aims for this award are to;
- Highlight and demonstrate the excitement of STFC-related science (solar physics) by utilising the vehicle of the Blackpool Illumination's Lightpool Festival;
- Create an innovative public engagement experience through the impactful use of NASA SDO imagery;
- Produce a visually-arresting art installation that can be employed sustainably in multiple similar environments going forward;
- Engage with new, low science capital and underserved audiences, both public (local residents and Illumination visitors) and targeted school groupings;
- Inspire and raise the aspiration of targeted Blackpool primary schoolchildren through related SunSpaceArt activities and by meeting real-life researchers;
- Support the engagement of wider family groupings of the cohort of school-children engaged already in RWW's Leadership Fellowship activity.

Located within a large blacked-out space in the Winter Gardens complex, SUN will a 7-metre diameter sphere suspended above the ground. Eight laser projectors will project from within the sphere out onto the the projection fabric, the projection itself being a digitally combined movie of the NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory Atmospheric Imaging Assembly EUV images, forming a full 360 degree presentation. With an accompanying soundtrack, SUN will be experienced as a dynamic art installation that represents our star like never before. A targeted public engagement programme (eg. public talks and ask an astronomer sessions) will be delivered throughout the accompanying festival period. Also, SUN will have a focused school engagement programme which will include the local schools RWW is working with through his Fellowship. This will be in collaboration with another STFC Leadership Fellow, Dr. Helen Mason, and the SunSpaceArt project with support from artist, Helen Schell.

The areas of impact that will result from creating and employing SUN in Lightpool include (i) shaping and informing the attitudes of underserved, low science capital groupings within the town, hence improving their interest and understanding of science (Astronomy); (ii) the introduction of science engagement more explicitly into the Illuminations programme which could then be considered as a regular feature within the annual event; and (iii) the co-production of a new cultural and PE asset/experience that will be employed to engage with many different audiences and locations going forward.

A multi-stranded approach will be adopted to disseminating the outcomes and outputs from all aspects of the SUN installation and engagement project.

For the SUN installation itself within the Lightpool Festival, the project will have;
- Dedicated web-pages on Blackpool Illumination and Lightpool website;
- Advertising including social media as part of the extensive marketing of the Illuminations including Twitter and Facebook etc highlighting SUN;
- Press releases, considered as appropriate with Blackpool Council.

Subsequently, following the Festival, there will be;
- SUN evaluation report - to be shared with Blackpool Council and STFC;
- SUN evaluation video -a film created leading up to, during and after SUN to demonstrate the impact of the work - will include interviews with all stakeholders (the SUN team, the school student cohort and their families, teachers, Blackpool Illumination team as well as visitors);
- Networking & Conferences (teaching/sci-com/art): presenting the concept, aims, outcomes and evaluation to appropriate regional, national and international audiences;
- Newsletters & Conferences (astronomy): presenting at educational outreach sessions at, for example, the National Astronomy Meeting or International Astronomical Union Conferences.
- Peer reviewed papers: a paper on the outcomes from SUN engagement will be written.