Opal’s Comet last sailed through Calderdale in May 2024. The crew coursed their way down the Rochdale Canal and Calder & Hebble Navigation as part of CultureDale 2024.

Mr Wilson’s presents Opal’s Comet – a vivid, animated artwork transported by a transient community on a waterways pilgrimage.  As the crew navigate real-world challenges of boat life, their vessel functions as both exhibition space and stage.  Each voyage is soundtracked by a live band, performing an original song-cycle.

These songs are offered to local communities and individuals.  Each song explores a different season of grief and can be listened to, learnt or used as a conversation catalyst. The songs are also an invitation to join the Opal’s Comet journey, a proposition to sing together in the landscape; on tow paths, locks and bridges.

The journey, themes and story of Opal’s Comet can also accessed and followed remotely via social media broadcasts, podcasts and other digital documentation of the artwork, and music.

Opal’s Comet offers audiences and participants the opportunity to slow down and take stock, to celebrate shared values; pay homage to those we’ve lost and discuss how we might navigate a new future.