Winter Lights

I went to see the Winter Lights festival at Canary Wharf last night. I've done this a few times in Januaries past, and the weather is always miserable -- rain or wind or freezing cold or all three. True to form, last night it started snowing as I walked around! But it's still worth it to see the illuminated artworks.

Above is "Sasha Trees" by Adam Decolight, which looks very static in the picture but actually shimmers and changes color. Here's a video.

These irridescent pylons, called "Prismatica" by Raw Design, also involve movement -- they can be spun around, and there are chimes inside to provide an aural component.

"Two Hearts" by Stuart Langley uses the surrounding architecture and water as a canvas.

This is one of the Oge Collective's "Angels of Freedom." I cracked up at this little kid, who not only didn't reach the halo -- he kept pulling his hat over his face to hide from his mother's camera. Clearly not an angel. Or at least a mischievous one.

Another photographer was working the scene at the Heofon Light Maze, by Ben Busche of Brut Deluxe. I didn't go in the maze, but as you can see, plenty of people did. It kept changing colors, too.

Here's another work that was impossible to capture in a still photo. It's called "Colour Moves," by Rombout Frieling Lab, and involves rapidly shifting colored light that makes the patterns on the walls appear to move. I took several pictures, and they're all entirely different colors. Here's a video.

This is the most poignant of all the works I saw -- "The Last Parade" by Alexander Reichstein. It's a site-specific video installation that projects silhouettes of endangered and threatened animals on a wall along a canal. The animals slowly fade out as they walk from left to right, an obvious metaphor for what's happening in nature. Here's a video.

(I found it oddly appropriate that this guy was just hanging out, smoking and talking on his phone, apparently oblivious to the art.)

Finally, also with an ecological message, here's one of Mürüde Mehmet's "Floating Islands," made of plastic debris in the form of plants and animals, and then brightly painted and lit with black lighting.

It's not always easy to get myself all the way to Canary Wharf after a long workday, but I'm always glad when I don't miss this annual exhibit!