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)