Winter Lights 2026

As you may remember, for years now I've been going to the annual Winter Lights installations at Canary Wharf at the end of January. It's an annual show of light and sound sculptures, with the pieces installed outdoors on a walking tour through the neighborhood. They are always inventive and unusual, and they brighten the otherwise dreary days and nights at this time of year.

I went on Sunday and here's some of what I saw. Above is "Un-Reel Access" by KAPPA/Patrick and Kaori Jones of the UK and Japan. It's an illuminated doorway with one corner peeled up, and inevitably people would walk up to it and try the doorknob. "Through the power of light, Un-Reel Access asks us to abandon being bound by common sense. It is a portal that invites the curious mind to reframe and change its vision of the world," according to the sculpture guide.

Here's "Out of Body Experience" by Alaa Minawi of the Netherlands, Palestine and Lebanon. It's meant to evoke dancers and the capacity of dance to take us out of ourselves.

"Sol," by Artistic Latvia / Janis Petersons, suspends illuminated replicas of the planets among the trees in an indoor rooftop garden. "What if the stars leaned closer?
What if the planets themselves could rest in your backyard, shimmering softly beneath your gaze?" (That's from the guide again.)

"Colour Rush" by Liz West (UK) was made like this: "Two different large 'Concertina' drawings were created before being cut up, mixed together, repositioned and folded into eight individual stripes. It is these luminous stripes that are the basis of this new octagonal light box." I'm not sure I understand that but it sure is colorful.

"For Ever and Ever and Ever" by Anna Lomax (UK) is installed in three different locations, and I only visited two. It uses "infinity mirrors" to endlessly replicate lit features installed in a column (top) and panels (above).

"Whale on the Wharf" is a more permanent installation, but I hadn't seen it before last night. It's a whale made of pieces of plastic debris like toys, jugs, coolers and shoes, seemingly surging upward from the waters of the canal. That purple box at far left is Hawksmoor, the restaurant where Dave took me for my last birthday in November.

Those are the sculptures that are more static -- that don't depend on movement and sound for their full effect. But like last year, I also made a video so you could experience the more dynamic creations, which use music or sound and spinning, shifting, pulsing light.

In the video, we start with a crowd shot to show how many people were there on Sunday. Answer: a lot!

After that, we move to the art:

1. Two views of "Amplitudes" by Limbic Cinema (UK), meant to evoke "the diverse nature of waveforms that shape both the natural world and human experience." This is my favorite piece of the whole show. It uses light projected onto a spraying fan of water droplets, along with timed music.
2. At 1:55, you see "Lacto-Reacto-Light" by Jack Wimperis (UK), a lit panel made of recycled plastic milk bottles that reacts to movement in the crowd.
3. That's followed by "FloWeЯ PoWeЯ," by Aerosculpture / Jean-Pierre David and Christian Thellier of France. This was an interesting sculpture, but what's even more unusual is that the video fails to fully capture the color. Those little spinning "flowers" were much more vibrant and colorful in real life than they are digitally.
4. "Trispheric Garden" by REELIZE.STUDIO of Australia is supposedly inspired by "the architecture of dreams." From the catalogue: "Each obelisk houses mirror-like orbs that refract and reflect light, casting ethereal patterns across the water’s surface. Together, they transform the fountain into a ‘dreaming pond’, where reflections ripple like portals between reality and imagination."
5. "In Bloom" by Kumquat Lab (UK) was inspired by pollinators visiting flowers: "Touching a flower triggers a musical note, echoing the dance of pollinators moving from bloom to bloom. The work turns this natural ritual into a collective and intuitive act of music-making, celebrating connection and the vital role of pollination." (I couldn't hear music but maybe there were just too many people.)
6. "Aether" by Architecture Social Club (UK) looks like a nightclub. Light beams project onto a suspended collection of fine rods and a black backdrop, and it makes vibrant, shifting shadows on the floor, too! From the guide: "Like a dancer improvising, Aether translates music into hypnotic waves and phosphorescent fragments, stirring something deeper within the audience." (There are two clips of this piece.)
7. At 5:46 we have "Blueprint" by Studio Vertigo (UK), which is inspired by the twisting double helix of DNA.
8. That's followed by "Hulahoop" by Scale (France), a hypnotic light and music sculpture and another favorite of mine. "As the eye follows the lines traced by the installation, peripheral vision melts away, hypnotising the viewer into an almost dreamlike state."
9. At 7:29 you'll see "Sanctuary" by Ithaca Studio (UK), "a tall, almost cathedral-like open structure, designed to immerse the audience in atmospheric light and sound. Enter the Sanctuary and be surrounded by colourful, reflective, illuminations and cocooned in a soothing soundscape, as the lighting transforms from the soft glow of candlelight to the jewel-like, bright tones of stained glass." (Watch for my reflection too! I'm pretty easy to spot.)
10. "Manifestation" by Marcus Lyall (UK) was inspired by Victorian spiritualism. "Loosely based on ‘Thought Forms’ a 1905 book by spiritualist Anne Besant, who believed abstract visual forms could be linked to sounds or spiritual states, this piece delves back into the early dawn of ‘Visual Music’ shows, and their roots in seances and magic." (From the guide.)
11. And finally, there's "At the Hand" by LACROIX (Canada), in which spectators use their own hand movements to trigger a monumental hand made of light.

It was a great show, made better by the cup of mulled wine I bought along the way!