Fire Gardens

The Melbourne International Arts Festival is currently happening from 3 - 21 October 2018 at different sites around the city. One of the special events at this year's festival is the transformation of the Royal Botanical Gardens into the Fire Gardens over the next four evenings by French artists Compagnie Carabosse. As you entered the gardens there were burning clay pots to light the pathways as you walked around.

At the beginning were moving metal sculptures and rings of fire to walk through as you made your way down to the lake where there were many floating platforms with different lit sculptures. As it was a windy night they were moving around a bit on the water. There was also a solo guitarist, Steph LaRose, playing music which added to the atmosphere as people stood around and watched the sculptures.

Further along the path were sculptures that shot out flames, and a bunch of lit piles of charcoal both in tubes spaced out in the ponds and in giant snaking sculptures on the hill, which due to the wind resulted in sparks flying out of them whenever a gust came along (and at one point people were having to stamp out a little fire on the ground).

Within the Fern Gully were little white tank tops hanging among the trees that looked like floating lanterns. There were also these rocket looking sculptures on the grass that you could see different designs on when the flames would shoot through them.

Overall it was a great experience to be able to walk around the Fire Gardens. Thankfully the festival had three set entry times and limited the number of tickets to 7,000 total for the whole night so it wasn't too crowded. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket for this sold out event I'm sure you will enjoy it.