DEVON’S National Parks are set to take centre stage in two new short films, celebrating the Parks’ landscapes and raising awareness for their preservation.

The two new films have now gone live online and are free to view. They celebrate and display two unique, one-off gatherings that took place over two weekends earlier this summer at Valley of Rocks in Exmoor and Meldon Dam in Dartmoor.

People from near and far became so-called Lumenators for the secret gatherings, with local artists creating music, dance and poetry, especially for the events.

The Lumenators were given low-impact Geolights specially developed for the film, which glowed in different colours and could be arranged into different patterns.

The aim of the Lumenators was to celebrate nature and highlight everyone’s right to explore the countryside. The Geolights also had built-in GPS technology to enable the creation and visualisation of changing patterns in the landscape.

The project, Green Space Dark Skies, was designed to draw attention to how we safeguard the future of our countryside and our rights to access it. The Dartmoor and Exmoor events were part of a series being made at rural locations across the UK.

Led by outdoor arts pioneers Walk the Plank, the project took place from April to September 2022.

Green Space Dark Skies is one of ten major projects commissioned as part of Unboxed: Creativity in the UK, a ground-breaking UK-wide celebration of creativity in 2022, designed to celebrate science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths.

The films will be accompanied by an online, free-to-access archive of stories that explore people’s connections with the countryside and wildlife around them. Everyone is welcome to share a story.

Jamie Beddard, who worked with local community groups and artists to create the project, said: ‘The enthusiasm, the energy and the excitement, in the beautiful Meldon Dam… for me, it was a completely magical experience. Everyone was really motivated and a lot of people made new friends.

‘I’ve always liked being outside, I’ve always liked being in beautiful places, the idea of animating these amazing places like Meldon Dam in Dartmoor, which was an amazing place to animate.

‘There was a really good creative team and all the local teams have been amazingly supportive. I want to do it again!’

► To find out more, or to watch the films, visit: https://greenspacedarkskies.uk