Volunteering at Bamburgh Beach

At the beginning of July, the team enjoyed a day’s volunteering with the Northumberland Coast National Landscape group on Bamburgh Beach.

Swopping the office for a day on the beach was helped by glorious sunshine, and our tasks kicked off with helping to remove some of the Pirri Pirri plants that grow in the sand dunes. The conservation team explained, that these plants are a problem because they are an invasive species from New Zealand, that are low-growing and produce dense mats of leaves and ball-like burs with spiny, hooked seeds. The seeds attach themselves to anything that passes-by and dogs can easily end up covered in them, which helps the plant spread to other corners of the countryside.

Pirri Pirri plant

After filling bags with Pirri-Pirri plants, we then helped with a beach clean. The beach at Bamburgh is vast, and enjoys an award-winning stretch of golden sand  backed by dramatic dunes and Bamburgh Castle. It also offers spectacular views of the Farne Islands and is widely regarded as one of the cleanest and most unspoiled beaches in the UK.

However, under the surface there is a huge amount of microplastic pollution, and our job was to help pick up the thousands of ‘nurdles’ (roughly the size of a lentil) that can be found on the shoreline at the edge of the dunes.

These nurdles, we learnt, can be devastating to wildlife. They are everywhere and difficult to spot,  so we did well to find so many, whilst we were there.

Later in the day we walked to the Bowl Hole cemetery, an archaeological site further up the beach where the ‘Bamburgh Bones’ were discovered after a storm in the winter of 1816/17. However, excavation of the site didn’t fully take place until much later in 1998, and the remains didn’t move to their final resting place in the Crypt under St Aidan’s Church, in Bamburgh until 2016.

Finally, our day ended with a paddle on the beach. More information on volunteering with Northumberland Coast National Landscape can be found on their website www.northumberlandcoast-nl.org.uk

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** Incidentally, back in May 2006, just above the Bowl Hole, our team produced a site-specific contemporary dance piece for Dance City featuring 3 dancers, a solo singer and a choir. The piece titled Shore was choreographed by Cathy Marston and described as ‘spell-binding’ in the Northern Press.

Shore (2026) choreographed by Cathy Marston, produced by Culture Creative

Lightscape trails open in Australia

New Commissions, world premieres and the return of our fan favourites, bring audiences back to LIGHTSCAPE year-on-year.

Just as we are about to break for the summer in the UK, our colleagues in the Southern Hemisphere are opening the doors on two incredible light trails for 2026, in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, and Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth.

Working closely with the teams at each of the gardens, our content producers spend months curating the artwork for each the trail, which includes a mix of existing work by international artists and new commissions.

Spotlight on Betty Sargeant

This year one of the new  installations commissioned for the trail in Melbourne is Wilderness Within by Melbourne-based artist Betty Sargeant.

“Huge thanks to Culture Creative for the first class creative production leadership” BETTY SARGEANT

At first glance this new artwork looks simple, long, thin, ornate lanterns hanging overhead that change colour in time with the music. However, when you get closer, and begin to learn more about the piece, you realise that the pattern on the acrylic is much more complex. On each lantern is an enlarged image of a microscopic ecosystem captured by Betty on her trips all over the world including to the Brazilian Amazon and the jungles of the Panama.

Accompanying the artwork is a soundscape that features environmental field recordings including the internal sounds of trees and underwater recordings from significant waterways such as the Ganges in Varanasi in India and the hot springs and pools in Wulai in Taiwan. The sounds were captured using hydrophones and you can hear the recordings when playing the clip below.

Betty's work is just one of over 20 different artworks that make up this year's Melbourne trail. Other highlights are shown in the gallery below:

LIGHTSCAPE MELBOURNE GALLERY

In Perth this year, the trail has also extended to Yagan Square in the city centre, where the lights on the buildings details some of the artwork on trail.

YAGAN SQUARE, PERTH

Here's a few more highlights from this year's trail in Kings Park and Botanic Garden:

LIGHTSCAPE PERTH GALLERY

Lightscape in Perth runs until 26 July and in Melbourne until 2 August. www.lightscape.com

** Our team is currently recruiting for a new Creative Producer, if you are interested in being part of our team, and programming trails worldwide, please visit our vacancies page or click here for more details. (Closes 8 July)

New Prop & Technical Hires Business Launched

In partnership with Public Image Events, part of the Culture Creative Group, we are delighted to announce that we have opened the doors to our Northumberland warehouses and launched a new hires business for 2026.

Visit our hires website: https://www.publicimage-events.co.uk/hires

Hires include multiple props made by our creative team for both indoor and outdoor trails and events, and technical equipment for creating special effects.

Some of our props include a 12m-long hot air balloon used in a retelling of the story of the Wizard of Oz; a pair of 2 metre-tall polar bears, standing on their hind legs used in the Snow Queen indoor trail; coffins lined in red velvet used for Dracula’s lair; thousands of tree baubles; and a multitude of evil-looking pumpkins and spiders of every size from their award-winning Halloween Trails. Plus, there are smoke machines, bubble machines, and other technical equipment for creating special effects available for hire.

Ian Bone, Director of Public Image Events and Co-Director of Culture Creative said: “We are delighted to be expanding Public Image Events through introducing prop and technical hires. Most of the events that Culture Creative’s award-winning design team works on are at the tail end of the year, so it makes sense to hire out the best of our props held in storage as we have a huge variety available.”

Clare Elliott, Senior Designer at Culture Creative said: “Over the years we have created everything from an ice maiden’s palace, to a mad hatter’s tea party. We have brought everyone’s favourite fairy tales to life using props, lighting effects, dressing and so much more. For hundreds of thousands of people each year our creative experiences are a seasonal highlight. We love recreating fairy stories out of props and are delighted that they bring so much enjoyment.”

Further props will be added to the company’s website as the team continues to catalogue and prep the thousands of lights, flowers, and Christmas trees it stores throughout the year, for public and private hire.