To Canary Wharf, an area of London I hadn't visited for many a year, to follow the Winter Lights art trail. The theme of this years festival was sustainability and the environment, and was reflected in the eco-friendly materials used in the creation of the artworks as well as some of their subject matter. Like last year's Lumiere (here), Winter Lights is a very welcome festival of installations bringing light, joy and relief to the city's post-Christmas winter gloom.
Prismatica by Raw Design.
This is the first installation to hit you as you emerge from Canary Wharf underground station. It consists of a series of rotating kaleidoscopic prisms of coloured light, which encourages audience participation to spin the prisms creating refracted light patterns. A playful and engaging series of works.
Bit.Fall: Julius Popp
This installation was really ingenius and had me scratching my head as to how the artist/designer was able to make light and falling water spell out a series of words from a live newspaper feed.
Lightbench: LBO Lichtbank.
A series of fun glowing neon benches.
Angels Of Freedom: OGE Collective.
Interactive winged things. Inviting visitors to participate and show their angelic side.
Aura: Ronan Devlin.
This was another dramatic large-scale installation situated on the water of the dock which was based around light and mist. The movement and light of the mist was generated by responses from sensors and a camera that photographed people and movement on the bank of the dock. The resultant ever-shifting transient forms were ethereal.
Colour Moves: Rombout Frieling Lab.
Adams Plaza Bridge was the setting for this large series of disruptive psychedelic patterned projections. A colourful, immersive installation.
Recyclism: Oskar Krajewski/Art of Ok.
These were intriguing pieces of light art. They consisted of drones and other electric machinery and components which were recycled and combined to create what looked like miniature cityscapes.
We Could Meet: Martin Richman.
A very subtle, understated permanent installation in contrast to the others.
Vena Lumen: Fontys Vena Lumen Team.
This chair installation was fun, using technology with participants encouraged to place their hands on a pad. The interaction and chemistry of their pulses on the pads then triggers off a sequence of pulsing light patterns in the seat.
Enchanted Connections: Tine Bech Studios.
This was a really calming artwork taking place in the Crossrail Place Roof Garden using light, saturated colour and smoke to create atmosphere and shadow amongst the natural tree and plant forms.
Heofon Light Maze: Ben Busche.
One of my favourites of the installations, a perspex maze of ever changing colours.
Henry Moore's Draped Seated Woman, (1957-8) at the Cabot Square Fountain
Whale Ghost: Pitaya.
Another favourite installation. A spectral electronic whale skeleton which undulated as if under water, beautifully mimicking the natural movements of the real thing. It was accompanied by a haunting soundtrack of real whale song. As a piece to highlight animal extinction it was a poignant and moving artwork, especially given Japan's recent statement of intent to resume commercial whaling despite opposition from other countries and animal rights groups.
Two Hearts: Stuart Langley.
Love and romance, putting the heart and humanity into this bastion of hard finance.
Blue Neuron: Zac Greening.
I really enjoyed watching the movements of this lightning-fast kinetic installation set high in the trees of Columbus Courtyard. It perfectly reflected pulsing neurons rapidly firing and connecting to each other in a circuit of trees around the courtyard, much like the real thing in the human body. I liked that the clumps of spiky dendrites also reflected the shapes of the branches of the trees.
Floating Islands: Mürüde Mehmet.
This collaboration between the artist and Tower Hamlets school groups based on mini-beasts and plant forms using recycled materials was charming, and used luminous paints rather than LED lights unlike the other installations for its impact.
Flow: Squidsoup.
Glorious swirls of choreographed, sequenced lights.
Submergence: Squidsoup.
Another large installation by Squidsoup consisting of 24 thousand sequenced lights which the public could walk among and interact with. I was a little disappointed in this one as it didn't appear to be working when I arrived.
Sasha Trees: Adam Decolight.
This was an amazingly bright installation at Westferry Circus. A neon forest of electric trees. The ever changing colours gave the piece a sense of movement. It was literally brilliant!
Winter Lights
until 26th January
Canary Wharf
London
