A look back over three-week festival of arts and culture

Belonging Bandstand by Morag Myerscough (Photograph: Victor Frankowski)

Popular life-drawing classes, an exclusive performance by an award-winning artist and energetic circus shows were among the highlights at this year's Brighton Festival.

The three-week festival opened with a riot of colour in the shape of the Children’s Parade on May 5, which saw more than 5,000 schoolchildren process through the city representing this year’s theme of ‘art’.

The reason behind the theme was that this year’s guest director was Turner Prize winner, artist and Brighton resident David Shrigley.

His life drawing class installation, Life Model II at Fabrica, proved popular with the public, with more than 12,500 visitors taking part throughout the festival. The installation replaced the live model with a caricatured robotic sculpture of a nine-foot-tall woman.

Life Model II by David Shrigley at Fabrica (Photograph: Michael Fung)

Mr Shrigley said: “The experience of guest directing Brighton Festival has been fun! I think the most fun thing has been meeting people – people who are performing, people involved in programming, people who are collaborating with me, people visiting the Festival. It’s been a really social experience, and a really positive one.

“I feel really embraced by the arts community in Brighton, but I also feel that I in turn have embraced the arts community back. It’s been a real privilege to be part of the Festival in such a big way, and to have met so many people. I feel very lucky.”

Popular events included The Nelken Line, where 200 residents joined over 60s dance company Three Score Dance to create Pina Bausch’s extraordinary promenade on the seafront, and The Arms of Sleep, with 150 budding performers taking up the invitation to become integral parts of overnight choral sleepover.