Events
Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World
Slide Nr 1Humans have always sought to bring light into darkness. Cultures around the world traditionally celebrate festivals of light – both literally and figuratively – during the darkest times of the year. As that time draws closer in the Northern Hemisphere, we shine a light on some of the most beautiful secular light festivals all over the world. [Photo: Yusuke Miyahara/Flickr]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 2Amsterdam Light Festival puts the city’s many canals to excellent use, employing them as mirrors to multiply the effect of lights strung up alongside, sculptures suspended above and illuminated buildings lining the water. The best way to see it all? Naturally from the comfort of one of the canal boats cruising along the festival route! [Photo: Janus van den Eijnden]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 3Helsinki is one of the darkest capital cities on earth during the winter months, so it’s no surprise that locals embrace a chance to enjoy the light shows of LUX Helsinki. The festival is held on four long mid-January nights, during what many consider to be the most depressing time of the year. If the weather is too nippy for extended outdoor viewing, the programme also features indoor events.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 4Strange as it may seem in this day and age to celebrate the failed attempt of a domestic terrorist to blow up the Houses of Parliament, that’s exactly what Guy Fawkes Night is all about. The event is marked by bonfires across the UK – but not content with a fire alone, the annual Carnival in Bridgwater also features elaborate themed floats, decorated and illuminated with light bulbs. The tradition has evolved since the first recorded event in 1847, and today there are similar processions across the English West Country.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 5Lyon gives the French capital a run for its money when it becomes a City of Light each December during the annual Fête Des Lumières. Today’s vibrant, modern festival dates back to a centuries-old tradition of locals placing a candle in their window to commemorate a medieval plague epidemic. In dozens of locations across the city, old buildings, modern architecture and riverside sculptures are artfully illuminated. [Photo © Ville de Lyon – L.Cerino]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 6Festival Lausanne Lumières invites visitors to “discover Lausanne under a different light”. Perhaps appropriately for the small town, it’s a festival on a smaller scale, with roughly a dozen attractions within walkable distance of each other. Many of the installations, sculptures and interactive artworks are subtle, delicate and clever. Almost as much space as is devoted to established artists is reserved for NEXT, a competition open to young local talents. [Photo: Lausanne Lumières]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 7Berlin can feel like a grey vortex of vitality in winter. There isn’t much to be done about the grim weather, drab cityscape and the general population’s inclination towards colourless outerwear, but the German capital’s vibrant nightlife, lively culture scene and a plethora of festivals help light up the darker months. The Festival of Lights transforms some of the city’s most popular landmarks, like the Brandenburg Gate, but also brings light installations into residential areas far from the beaten tourist track.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 8The success of Berlin’s Festival of Lights has spawned a whole series of associated events. With the German iteration in its 13th year, the event agency behind it has taken the concept on the road with annual offshoots from New York to Zagreb, as well as presenting one-off showcases and contributing light art productions to festivals around the world. [Photo: Miroslav Vajdic/Flickr]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 9Portland, Oregon’s Winter Light Festival (which naturally has a vowel-free hipster acronym: PDXWLF) is entering its third year. The 2017 edition, with over 100 artists and performers, already attracted 40,000 visitors to the festival grounds on the Eastbank Esplanade along the Willamette River. Those willing to brave the potentially adverse conditions next year will be treated to even more submissions by artists from the greater Cascadia region, under the festival theme “The Light of Progress”. [Photo: TriMet]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 10FILUX, the Festival Internacional de las Luces (International Festival of Lights), takes over the historic centre of Mexico City for four nights each year since 2013. In 2017, a sister festival launched in Mérida, Yucatán, with both festivals predominantly featuring local artists. Organisers work with the host cities to preserve some of the artworks for permanent display, making the cityscape more colourful and illuminated with each edition.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 11Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks are perhaps the Southern Hemisphere’s most popular light show. If you can’t be there to ring in the New Year, visit in the middle of the Australian winter, when the city hosts an equally impressive display. In fact, compared to a few hours of entertainment that can only be seen from certain vantage points around the harbour, Vivid Sydney offers hundreds of light shows, in dozens of locations, spread over several weeks.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 12i Light on Singapore’s Marina Bay is billed as Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival. The waterfront precinct is illuminated by light art installations created by local and international artists for three weeks in March each year. The festival doesn’t just feature art made from sustainable and recycled materials and low-energy light sources like LED, but also encourages businesses to conserve energy and runs an LED light bulb exchange for visitors.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 13Nabana no Sato Winter Illumination Festival is only one of many fantastic winter light festivals in Japan. Held in a flower theme park within Nagashima Island Resort, it makes a virtue out of the seasonal lack of flowers, replacing colourful blooms with multi-hued light sculptures and a light tunnel known to provide the perfect light for flattering selfies. The displays are so spectacular that the flower park is actually more popular in winter, despite its lack of flowers. [Photo: Yusuke Miyahara/Flickr]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 14Elsewhere in Japan, Kobe Luminarie was founded to commemorate the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995. It was first held within the same year the earthquake took thousands of lives, when the memory of power cuts and enforced darkness were still fresh on people’s minds. Today, the festival movingly pays tributes to the lives lost and the remarkable spirit of survival that enabled the community to create a beautiful tradition out of a terrible tragedy. [Photo: POHAN CHEN/Flickr]
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
Slide Nr 15In Thailand, Loy Krathong and Yee Peng compete for attention each November. Both full moon festivals are centred around thousands of individual lights released into the night, as locals bring floats made from coconut shells, banana leaves or bread, decorated with flowers, candles and incense to the river, and watch them float downstream. Elsewhere, paper lanterns are released into the sky. Similar celebrations abound across Thailand and neighbouring countries, and are often counted among the most visually spectacular festivals in the world.
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Glow Beyond: 14 Light Festivals Around The World.
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