Suwannee Hulaween Celebrates 10 Years With Spirit Lake Immersive Art October 23, 2023 10:30

Photos by Isom Morgan

Suwannee Hulaween is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Live Oak, Florida at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park this week from Thursday October 26th - Sunday October 29th 2023. As a special way to commemorate this year’s Hulaween, festival organizers have unveiled the Spirit Lake Immersive art programming for the first time ever. Spirit Lake has earned the reputation of being one of the premier immersive art experiences on the festival scene, since Hulaween's inception in 2013.
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“At the helm of this new era for Spirit Lake is the new Creative Director, Justin Bolognino who is the CEO and co-founder of META. The company creates live, multi-sensory experiences that use technology, design, and storytelling to ignite the human senses and spirit. Bolognino's previous work consists of designing immersive artistic experiences in collaboration with artists such as Skrillex, Phish, Questlove, Porter Robinson, Tiësto, and many more. In addition to working with musical acts, META also has various brand clients such as Google, Spotify, Samsung, Vimeo, and more. Gearing up for his first Hulaween edition as Spirit Lake’s Creative Director, Bolognino has fortified the classic installations that
fans have come to know and love as well as curating 10 additional installations and experiences.”
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Spirit Lake hosts an array of talent, filled with artist from numerous specialties such as painters, sculptors, lighting designers, fire/metal workers, craftsman, and thespians. Spirit Lake art installations and other various features are usually kept secret ahead of the festival, but in honor of its 10th year in existence Hulaween has revealed that there will be 10 new installations for attendees to explore. Also,
this year each artist and art collective will be credited across all platforms (festival app, website, onsite signage, etc.).

Some of the new installations consist of:

Chatterpillars is a new installation by Essi Rhodes that will consist of two human-size caterpillars meant to inspire a change in perspective. Fans can interact with the installation by talking into the caterpillar's mouth so that a friend or stranger on the other side can hear their thoughts.

The Cosmic Portal is another new interactive, wooden LED sculpture designed by Tyler Schrader. Equipped with over 5000 LEDs and projection mapping, this sculpture is equipped with a device that detects electrical variations of plants, translating them into vibrations, audio, and visual experiences that encourage attendees to reconnect with nature using technology.

Subloominal Voxeleyes will showcase interactive bioluminescent mushrooms in their Bioshroom display which are created by growing and foraging real mushrooms that are 3D scanned and digitally sculpted to be 3D printed.

Save the TV’s - Irregular Scheduled Programming will utilize old style tube televisions and get creative with them visually to get people to think twice about discarding old electronics.

Rounding out the new installations are: Daniel Shields’ UV reactive Portal Prism, Charlie Black Cat Smith’s flame-infused interactive steel sculpture, The Fleeble Flobbler, Tyson Ayers’ The Sound Cave, Gnome Village Minis from John Grillo, a unique Campground Stage Design from Hannah Miller and Justin Bolognino, and brand design + illustration from Young & Sick.
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Several of the Spirit Lake classics will be returning this year. Marvelous Marv will lead Frick Frack BlackJack once again for those fans wanting to risk it in this no cash, no limit casino. A huge fan favorite is the projection mapping over the lake by Jasper & Shelby Mosher.

Cory Glenn is bringing back Incendia this year to Hulaween. This installation serves as one of Hulaween’s stages as well and is known to have amazing once in a lifetime collabs by musicians/producers take place in the fire that surrounds the stage.

Paul Kuhn, the genius behind Twelve Limbs Art Studio is bringing back his larger-than-life sculptural pieces with include the Ogres, The Ferryman, Witch and more.

Covering over 15,00 square feet this year, The Mural Maze will be led by Ania Amador. The Mural Maze which started at the first annual Hulaween has continued to grow over the past decade and this year is expanding even more to include a lounge and workshop space called Deliberate Creation Station.

Other well-known installations returning for the 10 th Annual Suwannee Hulaween include Lost Creations’ House of Lost, Duende Builds sustainability-built Birdhouses, The Haunted House presented by Efren Rebugio Jr & Chris Robertson, Thomas Dambo’s The Spider, and Spirit Lake deco design by RÜTS.
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Headliners for this year’s Suwanee Hulaween include six sets from festival founders The String Cheese Incident, Trey Anastasio Band, Goose, John Summit, Elderbrook, Big Wild, Channel Tres, Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Smino, Dispatch, and an exclusive East Coast festival appearance from Pretty Lights with 2 sets. Tickets are SOLD OUT for this years Hulaween. The official schedule dropped last week on Hulaween website and App.