The Huron Waves Festival is launching the 2023 season with the Gaia Adventure.
The event will run from June 1-23 at the Trivitt Church Auditorium in Exeter.
Artistic Director John Miller says inside the auditorium, the six-foot wide Gaia sculpture created by UK artist Luke Jerram, will be hanging. Outside on Baldwin Street, they’re going to have a floor map of Canada. He says all of the pictures that were compiled to put Gaia together as this replication of the world came from NASA spacecrafts and the photographs on the floor map have come from Canadian satellites.
South Huron council has agreed to close Baldwin Street off for the length of the Gaia Adventure.
Miller describes Gaia as a balloon that’s six feet in diameter and hangs from the ceiling. It’s illuminated from inside and rotates very slowly so that people who are in the presence of Gaia can see the entire globe as it goes around. He says there’s also a soundscape that goes with it that is the voices of the astronauts as they see the Earth from outer space along with a musical interpretation of space.
“For 14 of those days school groups are coming to see Gaia and learn about the environment and space and to see the map that’ll be on the street. And already more than 900 students have signed up with their teachers to come and experience Gaia,” he says.
Miller says the installation has been touring with world with great success in Asia, Europe and North America but the is the first time it’s appeared at a Canadian festival so they’re excited to have it in Huron County for a month.
