//Partners

As a charity which looks after places for everyone, they are proud to be part of this UK initiative which aims to make landscapes more accessible and approachable for more people.

Green Space Dark Skies is produced and delivered by Walk the Plank and was commissioned by UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK. Walk the Plank is working in collaboration with core partners Siemens, National Parks UK and the University of Salford, with The National Association of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Extraordinary Bodies, the collaboration between Diverse City and Cirque Bijou, CC-Lab and Activate Performing Arts.

Walk the Plank is working with the National Trust as creative and delivery partners in a number of locations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We actively want to play a part in shaping what Britain’s cultural landscape looks like in 2022 and beyond; we want people to participate in an ambitious project that brings
together artists, engineers and environmental scientists; we want to create space for under-represented voices and emerging talent…and we trust the UNBOXED team to ensure that we have the creative freedom to explore the questions our R&D process began to ask. UNBOXED’s stated premise is based around expressions of hope – and we believe that there is value in the idea that hope may combat despair.

UNBOXED is a committed event with ring-fenced funding and a political will to make it happen. We believe that the best use of these funds – our money, as tax payers, not the government’s – is to use them for the purpose outlined on the UNBOXED website.

Not since the Olympics has there been an event of this scale and creative ambition, and the most important thing is that we have this once-in-a-generation opportunity for the sector, and the wealth of talent that exists within it, to do something amazing. The challenges of isolation, lockdown and uncertainty
created by the pandemic surely make this more important than ever.

It’s worth noting that UNBOXED is actively supported by all four UK-nations regardless of the political leadership that exists within each one, and it has cross-party support within Westminster.

Green Space Dark Skies has been commissioned as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK which is funded and supported by the four governments of the UK and is commissioned and delivered in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales and EventScotland.

Walk the Plank has nearly 30 years’ experience as outdoor arts experts collaborating with partners to dream up, create and produce moments of outdoor theatre and events across the UK and internationally. For more details of their extensive experience, have a look at https://walktheplank.co.uk/

Walk the Plank has a long-standing partnership with Siemens, another Greater Manchester based company. As a company at the forefront of new digital technology, and leaders in the field of Science, Technology and Engineering, they were an obvious choice to work with on Green Space Dark Skies. Siemens is responsible for the research, development and production of the innovative lighting system which is integral to the creative vision for Green Space Dark Skies.

Siemens engineers are working with partners Core Lighting to build a set of innovative, remote-controlled, geolocating hand-held lights. The lighting technology uses existing wireless programmable lights and incorporates something that’s never been done before: the ability for these lights to be animated through geo-positioning where the position of each light can be known in relationship to the others.

The team of engineers includes two of Siemens young Graduate Electrical and Electronic Engineers who were part of the original R&D project: Annabel Ohene and Nathaniel Fernandes.

After the events Walk the Plank will be able to use the lights at events in the UK and worldwide