THE resting place of Scotland’s national bard is to be the centre of an innovative sound and light show this winter.
A new music score created with emerging musicians in Dumfries will be part of a six-minute audio-visual projection on the Burns Mausoleum over the five days of the town’s Northern Lights festival.
The spectacle will feature famous visitors to the mausoleum over the last 200 years, as well as the work of musicians like Bob Dylan who have been influenced by Robert Burns.
In total there will be 14 sound and light installations as part of a free town-wide trail, co-created with a range of different partners to help bring light to the dark winter months.
Other highlights will be the Phantom Spectra, commissioned by the Stove Network, which will explore the town’s 200-year history with the travelling fair community.
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Divided, which first appeared at the festival last year and takes place inside in an abandoned nightclub, will return this year. The piece uses mirrors and Christmas trees that the community have donated to explore the shifting views on immigration.
Washing Line, a popular installation last seen in 2017, will also make a return to the festival bringing forgotten voices back to life at Gass House Close.
A new installation will be Birds on a Wire, created by the community as the centrepiece of the festival on the High Street.
Biofluorescence is another new work and will bring to life one of Scotland’s only patches of rain forest through an interactive silent disco experience which viewers can watch projected onto the side of the Midsteeple Quarter. It is created by Summerhill Community Centre in partnership with RSPB Scotland.
Another installation will be Norway Haus, celebrating the town’s Norwegian connection during the Second World War.
To add to the festivities, musicians, artists and producers from across Dumfries and Galloway will present five days of music, food and drink in the High Street from January 15-19.
Dumfries Carnival will take place on January 17 with a cast of more than 2000 members of the community dressed up, dancing and bearing lanterns.
The festival will conclude on January 25 with a special Burns Night edition of Le Haggis.
Executive producer of Big Burns Supper Graham Main said: “Our revised programme allows us to place Dumfries at the centre of our celebration. Working with a variety of different partners, we are able to make use of empty buildings, abandoned spaces and forgotten landmarks by transforming them into performance spaces temporarily. Our pilot edition of Northern Lights Dumfries in January 2025 demonstrated that there is huge demand in exploring these hidden spaces in different ways,” Main added.
“Our light trail is unique in that sense in that audiences are inside and outside of spaces.
“The joyful part of this remodelling for us has been discovering new collaborative relationships with a variety of partners who share our desire to reimagine Dumfries in 2026.”
More information about the programme can be found at www.bigburnssupper.com
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