Lumiere Exhibition

In November we proudly hosted Celebrating Lumiere’s Brightest Moments, a special exhibition developed, organised and curated by our art students. Created in partnership with the Artichoke Trust, the project offered Durham Sixth Form Centre students a unique opportunity to explore Lumiere’s legacy through the perspective of the local community. The exhibition welcomed almost 5,000 visitors to the Dead Dog Gallery from 13–15 November and showcased photographs taken by local people at past editions of Lumiere.

Over six months, Durham Sixth Form Centre art students developed practical skills in marketing, events management and exhibition curation. With support from Artichoke’s Learning and Participation team, they launched a regional photography competition that attracted hundreds of entries. Students were involved at every stage of the project, including shortlisting images, creating social media content, organising event logistics, preparing frames and shaping the overall visitor experience. From the submissions, they selected 24 images to display across four categories: ‘Transformation’, ‘Memorable Moments’, ‘People of Lumiere’ and ‘Fan Favourite’.

The exhibition was made possible with the generous support of our selection panel, who guided students through the final shortlisting process: The Right Worshipful Mayor of Durham, Cllr Gary Hutchinson; Ellen Beveridge, Chief Executive of Providence Learning Partnership; Ian Mackenzie, Chair of Henry Smith’s Charity; Mike Dillon, Trustee of the Hays Travel Foundation; and Durham Sixth Form Centre Student Executive, Dima Al Mashni. We also thank Stator Studios for the custom gallery display, along with our arts department and Head of Art, Mike Robinson, for leading the project.