Lighting up London

A University of Brighton graduate has been lighting up London’s most iconic buildings with political slogans.

Jack Mills, who graduated with BA(Hons) in Humanities and is now Print Features Editor on the magazine Dazed and Confused, teamed up with New York activist group The Illuminator who travel the world projecting messages onto high-visibility buildings.

Jack, 31, said: “For our project #AddressTheNation we took issues that matter most to our readers and projected them into the skyline of London – specifically, onto the Houses of Parliament, the Ministry of Justice, The Royal Courts of Justice, and Nelson’s Column. Across nine projections, we addressed top topics including Brexit, Donald Trump’s visit, the NHS and the abuse of trans people at London Pride.

“It was a first for Dazed and all went well – although a warden did try to move us along while we were projecting onto Nelson’s Column. No disrespect was intended, but this was a way to get our readers’ messages across. Many young people feel they aren’t being listened to by our government, and with Trump’s helicopters flying over London – a visit that many Londoners didn’t want – it felt like the perfect moment to make a big statement.

 

“There have been no complaints and we’ve been swamped with compliments.”

The Illuminator’s Emily Andersen told Dazed their main aim was to: “Shine a light on the urgent issues of our time – we’ve done a great job of having a moment of intervention, but also involving the power of the audience.”

Jack Mills worked in collaboration with Dazed’s Head of Video Bec Evans who is launching a short film about the night tonight (18 July) on dazeddigital.com.