Light festivals around the world → What to visit

ILO (International Light Festivals Organization) is a worldwide network of light festivals, events focusing on light design in public space, bringing together experts in the light arts. This alliance of festivals and professionals share their knowledge, inspiration, and information on an international level at their regular meetings. It creates a platform for co-production, research, and communication.

In January we visited the LUX Helsinki Light Festival and met with representatives of this organization. So here are the festivals that should not escape your attention and you can visit in the coming weeks.

VILNIUS LIGHT FESTIVAL → 25 – 28 01 2024

The Festival of Light in Vilnius, Lithuania, will present its fifth edition. On this occasion, it will celebrate the city’s 700th birthday through modern light installations, new media art and a synthesis of architecture and light transforming the Old Town and the central part of the city. The festival lasts three days and this year will focus on the theme of the future. The central site, which has also become part of the visual identity of the festival, is the Vilnius TV Tower, which is visible from almost every part of the capital and is even included among the world’s most visited tallest buildings.

Seventeen original dynamic, conceptual installations will be presented on 25 January, with sound installations, video projections, and interactive installations on the program.

WEB → lightfestival.lt

LUNA FESTIVAL → 26 01 – 11 02 2024

Luna is a Dutch light festival organised by the Media Art Friesland Foundation, which presents contemporary art to a wide audience in the north of the Netherlands. Among other things, the festival focuses on the development of young and emerging talents through the LUNA Young Masters project, and since 2016 has been organising LUNA Nights, in which it presents light, sound and performance art by local and international artists in many venues in the centre of Leeuwarden. The festival also includes an accompanying programme subtitled LUNA Currents, which serves as a venue for interdisciplinary meetings and workshops.

This year’s festival will take place from 26 January to 11 February with the main theme “Nothing Changes” – a pessimistic and gloomy view of life and individual perception that aims to open up the question of change or influence on current events (war, pandemics, inflation and other things we have to deal with).

WEB → mediaartfriesland.nl

COPENHAGEN LIGHT FESTIVAL → 02 – 25 02 2024

Copenhagen Light Festival is an annual festival of light that transforms the silent and cold winter darkness into a unique celebration of light art, light design and illumination in the heart of Copenhagen. Over the three weeks of February, the festival will showcase a wide range of light works such as sculptures, installations, projections, videomapping, events, and illuminations created by both established and emerging light artists, light designers, students, and arts organizations. This year the festival will offer a total of 5 outdoor artworks.

WEB → copenhagenlightfestival.org/en