White night Saturday fever!

Do you want to experience something crazy and awesome in the same time? Go volunteer at festival White night (Biela noc – in Slovak). This festival takes a place in Košice and Bratislava during autumn every year.

Why should you do this?

White night is the biggest and most visited festival of contemporary art in Slovakia. The main thought of this event is to present attractive light installations, concerts, movies, theatre and dance performances to people. This wouldn’t be so extraordinary. The most interesting thing about this event is hidden in time when it is happening. This festival is during the night.

Collectif Coin / Globoscope

Something about White night from the backstage

This year I decided to join festival as volunteer and get to know how it really works in background. Everything started on meeting for volunteers which was set up a few days before festival. We chosed places where we can work during the event. Whole city was covered with plenty of nice installations, exhibitions, etc. For example I can mention beautiful installation of the Moon by english artist Luke Jerram or interesting light installation Globoscope created by french artists Collectif Coin. That’s why it was very difficult to choose just one place.

Amanda Parer / Fantastic Planet - Humanoid

I decided to take light installation in church at Klariska street. This installation – called HARA – was  prepared by french artist Guillame Marmin. Play of blue, red and black colour was meant to bring people to their inner soul and target the centre of emotions. We (my and my slovak friend) arrived to the church around 6 PM, fully equipped with food, vest, maps and enthusiasm.

Guillaume Marmin / HARA

Our job was to control people whether they have tickets for entrance to the church and also controlling the amount of people who were going inside and outside. We lost a little bit of our enthusiasm about continuing the evening. Cold weather and never-ending stream of people started made our work to be crazy.  Hopefully, we got mental and health support in the meaning of hot tea and it really helped us. Around 1 AM we decided to take a walk and see other events in near surroundings. It was very nice, we were also talking with other volunteers from other places and shared our experience from the festival night. When I got home around 3 AM after festival  I was pretty tired but happy in the same time.

After finishing of the festival organizators were really nice and thankful. They promised us to obtain a certificate for attending this festival and also recommendations for other job opportunities. And we still have that T-shirts! :D

More info: https://www.bielanoc.sk/

Photos by: Dorota Szafranko & Baska Ester Bitalova 07/10/2017