Fratton Together once again invites the local community to join in with its Festival of Light, the tenth iteration of this annual event designed to gather us together and push away the darkness.

The event starts on Friday 22nd November with a Lantern Parade, starting at the Victory Business Centre (Somers Road North, PO1 1PJ) at 7pm and making its way towards St Mary’s Churchyard.

As well as the shining lights from the lanterns, which have been hand-crafted in local workshops over previous weeks, we will also be led by the energising Batala Samba Band who will also play in the Churchyard at 8pm.

From Thursday 21st (until Saturday 23rd), in the churchyard, there will be a series of light installations, activities, and refreshments as part of We Shine.

Inside the church, following on from the success of exhibitions like the Moon, and the Sun, the light installation Once A Sea will be set up, remaining there from Thursday 21st to Wednesday 27th November.

Once A Sea is a large-scale sound, light, and projection installation created specifically for St Mary’s Church by Portsmouth-based artists Heinrich & Palmer, the multi-media artist partnership who previously brought the Ship of Gods to St Mary’s Church.

The title refers to the time over 35 million years ago when Portsmouth was covered by sea, and the older fossilised marine life that now makes up the chalk and flint cliffs of Portsdown Hill was thriving in a deep ocean – it is these flints were later used to build the exterior walls of St Mary’s Church.

‘Once a Sea’ combines archival imagery, high-speed film, microscopy and 3D laser scans of the Church to take the viewer on an immersive journey through time.

You can watch this fascinating projection transform the interior of St Mary’s Church from 5pm to 9pm on November 21st to 23rd, and 4:30pm to 9pm (with nightly performances and activities from 6:30pm to 7:15pm, including live music (Sun, Tue), Yoga ‘By the Sea’ (Mon), and dancing (Wed)) on November 24th to 27th.

Entry to these are all free, but you need to book via Eventbrite for the Yoga Session.