Adelaide’s Catholic cathedral is set to be illuminated like never before as part of an immersive light experience conducted during the city’s 2026 Fringe festival. Source: The Southern Cross.
The event next month is expected to transform the architectural features of the heritage-listed St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral into a canvas of light, colour and motion.
Outgoing Adelaide Fringe director Heather Croall stressed the event would honour the “sacred atmosphere and heritage of the cathedral, drawing on its architectural form and spiritual resonance”.
“The Fringe has made a significant investment in the project and is delighted to be working with the Adelaide Archdiocese and cathedral parish on this exciting initiative,” she said.
“I think people are going to be really blown away – it’s history, architecture and cutting-edge technology all coming together. And it’s for all ages.”
Titled Cathedral Chiaroscuro, the event will consist of four, 15-minute projection loops from 8.30-9.30pm daily during the Fringe, from February 20 (except Mondays), accompanied by a music soundtrack compiled by cathedral music director Timothy Davey.
The projections are being created by Sydney-based company Electric Canvas, which produces the Christmas light show for St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.
Ms Croall said she had recently turned her attention to internal architectural projections in churches and cathedrals in Europe and North America.
“They are starting to take these beautiful sacred places and light them up in a way that people can see them in a whole new light,” she said.
After experiencing an event in the Bordeaux Cathedral earlier this year, Ms Croall began looking at venues for Adelaide.
“I really wanted to do St Francis Xavier’s, I just love this cathedral,” she said.
Electric Canvas managing director Peter Milne said nine projectors would be installed in the cathedral to “acknowledge every nook and cranny” of the central nave and the sanctuary.
“What we want to create inside this beautiful cathedral is an immersive experience so that people can wander at will and linger and see the wonderful architecture brought to life through the accuracy and colour rendition that projection affords,” Mr Milne said.
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Cathedral to light up for Fringe (By Jenny Brinkworth, The Southern Cross)
