Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival 2017

January’s dark evenings are set to be illuminated throughout Canary Wharf by angels, glowing graffiti and floating poetry, revealed by state-of-the-art light technology. These form part of the free Light exhibition opening at Canary Wharf on 16th January 2017.

For the third year running, the Winter Lights Festival will bring spectacular artworks, installations and experiences to Canary Wharf, many of them interactive or responsive. As a collection the 30 pieces showcase works by some of the most inventive and exciting international artists working with Light Art today.

Some of the pieces on show – Angels of Freedom, Luma Paint, OVO, Horizontal Interference, Digital Skins, Nonotak, Origin, Pii and Water Wall - have never been exhibited in the UK before making this year a truly unique experience for visitors where interaction is the theme of the displays.

Angels of Freedom, by Merav Etan and Gaston Zahr, contains a deep underlying message discouraging discrimination through interaction. Five giant wings with white halos invite people to turn into angels in a few simple steps through the power of photography social media.

OVO (Odeaubois) immerses visitors in unique and beautiful light structures whilst Marcus Lyall’s ‘On Your Wavelength’ is a mind-powered laser and sound installation of over 20,000 LEDs. Lyall’s structure uses participant’s brain activity to choreograph beautiful light patterns.

Visitors are invited to put their painting skills to the test in Mateo Mounier’s Digital Skins creating compositions of bright colour and pattern. Meanwhile over the weekend of 20th - 22nd January, live graffiti crafted from light is on show with Luma Paint Light Graffiti (Lichtfaktor feat. Helge Bomber Steinmann), transforming any object in to a live painting canvas. Bringing a further element to the fore, Water Wall (Gregory St. Pierre) uses a mist screen to interact with visitors as they will create beautiful patterns on to a wall of water.

For contemplation, The Garden of Floating Words by Elisa Artesero evokes a peaceful note giving the impression that a cluster of glowing neon words floats in the foliage of Jubilee Park, creating a poem of transience. BLOOM (Squidsoup) also has a calming effect made up of a thousand spheres of light each bobbing gently in the wind. One piece draws attention to world issues, created by Mike Stephen and school children, Liter of Light, highlights the need to give light to undeveloped countries.

Winter Lights Festival 2017 is free to the public and can be seen across the Canary Wharf Estate from 16th January to 27th January. The illuminations can be discovered in an array of different locations and the full list of the installations is below.

In conjunction with the Winter Lights Festival 2017, an exhibition by artist Lillian Lijn featuring spectacular sculptural works using light will be on display in the Lobby of One Canada Square from 8th January to 17th March 2017