Proposed Venue:
St Enda’s Park Rathfarnham

Glimmer is an event that is completely movable and scalable. It can be scaled back to a small exhibition in a small city centre park, or scaled up to a large-scale event in a larger public park. Essentially it could scaled and moved anywhere in the country.

However, we feel Dublin has the broadest potential to initially establish the name of the event. We have carefully examined many parks across the county. We feel that for year one, our proposed venue of St. Enda’s Park in Rathfarnham is the most ideal should we be secure partnership with the OPW. There are many reasons for this outlined at the bottom of this page but first see below for a visual representation of the space.

Explore the area on Google Maps here.





There is a huge amount of scope for all kinds of light art projects within this walking route. Artists could be given free reign to chose a location for their work, some could be interacting with the chosen space while others could be standalone sculptural pieces that simply sit in a given space. Alternatively, certain key locations could be opened up for applications for proposals by artists, for example the museum building could be put out for tender to artists as a projection mapping canvas.

Below is a selection of some sample locations on the route. These are not set in stone by any means and chosen purely to give an idea of the spaces within the walking route.

Potential Project Locations

1. Opening space for the walking tour, ideal for an arched or double walled project for viewers to walk under/through.



2. Open grass space for standalone installation. This space can be viewed from multiple locations. This is the initial view from the route pathway over a small stream:



Full view of the space having crossed the stream:




3. This area has a wide walkway with woodland either side:




4. At this location the woodland walking route opens up into a wide space within the woodland area. This space is viewable from multiple angles.


Full view of space from pathway:



5. Pond area, many light art installations work with water and reflection in it. This area can be viewed from multiple locations on the walking route.


Another view of many of the pond area: 




6. Old brickwork bridge over a stream that feeds the pond. Potential for projection/video project. Again with potenial for interaction with water.




7. Dungeon folly. The structure and open area is viewable from multiple points on the walking route.


The view of the folly and open area from the top of the steps:




8. The Rose Garden. This is a wide open, manicured space with a grid of pathways running through it.




9. Pearse Museum mapping space one. This area can be viewed from the Rose Garden. This facade and the surfaces conected to it have lot of scope for a projection mapping project.




10. Arched pergola walkway from The Rose Garden through to the Cafe Courtyard.




11. Cafe courtyard.




12. Stone structures along walking route with potential for simple but effective projects interacting with the space.



13. Another open area in a gap in the woodland. Again this space has a lot of stone features which give way to potential for site specific projects.




14. The Hermit’s Cave, this is a diverse location with potential for a wide range of types of projects.




15. Walkway through trees to museum/cafe area. Again a lot of scope for a wide range of types of projects.




16. Pearse Museum, this building is ideal for an architectural mapping project. This would likely be the flagship project of the event and the closing project in the walking tour.


Side angle of the building:

The Pathways

The walking route has clearly defined, well maintained pathways between projects. These pathways would be lit by festoons to guide punters through the park. With the warm glow that comes from festoons in a wooded area, this in itself would be a unique experience for many. Some of the pathways can be seen below followed by an example of a similar type path lit by festoons.

Infrastructure and Safety

St. Enda’s is a walled park, this allows easier application of ticketing the event, which as previously mentioned gives way to better crowd management which in turn creates a safer and better experience for all involved. There are ample open spaces/exits in the event of an emergency. The park is one contained venue with clearly defined and safe walking paths. A contained venue like this means less road closures and less disruption to public/traffic. Also, the park is located directly beside Marlay Park, which hosts large scale concerts annually, so the area is used to big events (though in the case of Glimmer, noise pollution will not be an issue).

St. Enda’s is on several Dublin Bus routes from city centre and other suburban areas with bus stops dotted around its perimeter walls. It is also just off the M50, however we would be pushing for public transport, possibly with the support of Dublin Bus.

The site has ample access for HGVs for delivering equipment for projects as well as genorators and other amenities.

The walking route is 100% wheelchair accessible with just one small area that has an alternative route, but doesn’t affect the wheelchaor user’s viewing of spaces.

Since the walking route is around the perimetre of the the park, there is ample space for generators for powering the projects inside the park area.

Suburban Location:

The park is amidst vast areas of housing estates, so at very least, local spectators will be plentiful. Having the event on the outskirts of the city avoids massive disruption in the city centre. There are many successful light festivals internationally that are located outside of their capital city centre areas such as the original Lumier, which is based in in the rural city of Durham, very far away from any major city. There is also Lumina in Cascais, Portugal which is a port/beach town west of Lisbon, then the German light festivals, Lichtungen which is the suburbs on the outskirts of Hanover. These are just a few examples of many that work outside cities.

The park provides a more easy going, laid back and enjoyable event - city centre events can be stressful, rushed and not very child or disability friendly. Another justification of having the event a little bit outside the city is to avoid dangerous overcrowding. Learning from the misfortunes of other events, Lumier London in 2016 had to be shut down on several occasions over the course of the event because of the difficulties they faced with crowd management in the city centre. Concerns for people’s safety were raised as the open viewing areas for the event became dangerously overcrowded.

St. Enda’s Venue Obstacles

Although public transport would be very much promoted for this event, particularly with a theme of Climate, the main obstacle with St Enda’s as a venue if that there is not sufficient parking onsite. Some potential solutions to this could be to Terraplas the pitches in the centre of the venue to turn them into  parking onsite. Or alternatively make use of parking off site, for example in the nearby golf course or Marlay Park.