LUMIERE LONDON 2016

Westminster Abbey, London

Lumiere London is an arts event taking place across the streets of London during January 2016. Whilst I love travelling abroad, I also love travelling at home and I loved this event for encouraging everyone to travel across London on foot, exploring and experiencing iconic areas of London in a new way, through light and projection. Using the arts to inspire pride in our city is genius...lets have more of this please!

Westminster Abbey, London

     Westminster Abbey

     I have long loved projections onto buildings, and this did not disappoint. 

     The favourite part of this event was Westminster Abbey. The changing light 

     projections used the architecture of the building to emphasis the sculptural 

     nature of this masterpiece. 

    When you live and work in a city you often dash past places and miss the 

    glory of whats on your doorstep. Through the bright colours illumining this 

   building it reemphasised what an amazing place it is and made it a 

   performance in its own right…and why not, what a great way to light up the 

   city.

Westminster Abbey, London

The piece at Westminster Abbey is 'The Light of the Sprit' by Patrice Warrener.

It lit up the west side of the Abbey and there was a constant stream of people stopping to watch the show. The changing colours kept me entertained for twenty minutes, and even warranted a facetime call to share it live with others, which also went down well.

Trafalgar Square, London

Trafalgar Square

The piece at Trafalgar Square is the Centre Point Lights. This was by far the busiest piece I saw.
These are the lights from the top of the Centre Point building taken down while the building is developed.

Leicester Square, London

Leicester Square

The piece at Leicester Square is 'The Garden of Light' by TILT.

It included giant light sculptures of all things you would find in a garden, plants, flowers, trees and was really well executed. 

You could tell exactly what each light represented and it made you think about the space in a new way, which is what the company is known for.

It was fun to see an oversized garden in the middle of London!

St James, London

St James

The piece at St James is 'Les Voyageurs (The Travellers)' by Cedric Le Borgne. This was the most poignant to me and the most eery. 

The location was more hidden out of the others and the area was very dark and mainly lit by the figures in the sky. They also adorned buildings and each had its own personality. This piece was my second fave and I would love to get a chance to see it again.

This piece was a very still piece and made you reflect.

Piccadilly 

This piece is Lumineoles by Porte par le vent. This piece had a Harry Potter esque vibe about it, with magical fish floating above everyone to filmic music. They come to life by dancing with the movements of the wind and had an ethereal feel.

I only managed to visit on one evening of this four night event, but I managed to see a lot of the locations in the West End. 

There were more aspects to this light festival further afield across London, such as near Kings Cross which I didn't have time to travel to. 

If there was one downside to his event it was that it wasn't on for long enough which also made it very busy. It was so nice to have some of central London's streets closed off to cars and be free to roam, the way this event was set up really did make the city seem magical. If theres an event like this near you, check it out! Lets hope London does this again soon.