Updated: Feb 5, 2020
Further to the announcement earlier this year that Lumiere London, the UK’s largest light
festival, will be returning to the city in January 2018, 10 more artworks and their locations
have just been revealed, including our very own piece on Leake Street!
Commissioned by the Mayor of London, and produced by arts charity Artichoke, Lumiere
London is the capital’s largest art event. Taking place from 18 th to 21 st January, the event is
free to attend.
Following the spectacular success of the first Lumiere London in January 2016, which saw
1.3 million visits over the four nights and a visitor spend of £22m during what is traditionally
one of the quietest times of the year, the nocturnal festival is designed to lift the spirits in
the darkest days of winter and show the city in a new light.
In 2018, more than 40 artworks made using the medium of light, will explore the city’s most
iconic buildings, landscape and architecture. The festival features artists from across the UK,
France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Canada amongst others.
Bigger, brighter and bolder, the second edition of Lumiere London extends from North to
South across the River Thames through six areas: King’s Cross, Fitzrovia, London’s West End
(including Carnaby, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Regent
Street, St James’s and St James’s Market), Mayfair, Westminster & Victoria, and Southbank & Waterloo.
Here on Leake Street, we will be welcoming Ruby, Santiago and Grey Matters; three works
by multidisciplinary artist, Emma Allen. Based between Sri Lanka and London, Emma uses
her own face as a living canvas to explore ideas of rebirth and renewal. Through 750
photographs Ruby sees her painted face transform from a skull into a sky full of shooting
stars, while Santiago traces the history of humankind mapped out from the single cell origin
of life to a digitally enhanced and technologically defined future. Grey Matters is a new work
that seeks to remove the social stigma accompanying mental health issues by creating
artistic impressions of the underlying biological processes of depression.
A few other highlights across the rest of London include:
The Light Of The Spirit by Patrice Warrener (France) at Westminster Abbey:
French digital artist Patrice Warrener returns to present the second instalment of The Light
of The Spirit for Westminster Abbey, one of the most popular installations at Lumiere
London in 2016. Building upon this 2016 commission to articulate elements on the West
Front, which gave the impression of a painted facade, for 2018 Warrener will incorporate
more of this landmark building, illuminating the sculptural details in his distinctive
polychromatic style.
Aether by Architecture Social Club (UK) at the West Handyside Canopy, King’s Cross:
The British collective of designers, architects, technicians and poets, Architecture Social
Club, will present an emotive and powerful audio-visual work for the festival entitledAether.
Its glittering mass grows, rolls and splinters in reaction to the soundscape created
by music producer, Max Cooper. Connecting light and sound to the emotions of viewers
and playing on our intrinsic and emotional 2 relationship with form, colour and sound,
Aether accentuates our connections with the physical, engulfing the viewer in a rich,
sensory experience.
OSC-L by Ulf Langheinrich (Germany) at The National Theatre:
Digital artist, Ulf Langheinrich will present OSC-L for Lumiere London 2018. The projected
work will transform the National Theatre fly tower into a glowing monument that will stand
out as a transcendent beacon along South Bank’s skyline. Designed to react with the
brutalist design of Denys Lasdun’s building, OSC-L will both animate and liquify the
appearance of the hard concrete shape of the National Theatre.
Bough 3 by Simon Corder (UK), 17-22 South Audley Street, Mayfair:
Bough 3 is a new commission for Lumiere London by British artist and lighting designer,
Simon Corder. Vivid tubes of fluorescent light will grow up the façade of this significant
Mayfair building, climbing like ivy up the wall, over and around the ornate decorations in
the brickwork, bathing the surrounding site in a soft blue light. Bough 3 will be the third in a
series of Bough projects by Corder, previously installed in Glasgow and at Oxo Tower
Wharf.
Artichoke is working with Team London, the Mayor’s volunteering programme for London,
to recruit around 300 volunteers from across the capital to help make the festival a success.
From sharing knowledge of the city and recommending places to eat and drink, to helping
audiences discover more about the artworks, sign up here.
Helen Marriage, Artichoke CEO and Lumiere London Artistic Director, said: “It’s exciting
and unusual to be working at this scale and Lumiere London is more than a light festival. It’s
an exploration of the city by artists and audiences that transforms our public spaces from
King’s Cross to the Southbank via London’s West End, Mayfair, Victoria and Waterloo. From
the playful to the thought-provoking, the artistic programme will present our city to the
world as a public gallery without walls.
Ben Stephenson CEO of WeAreWaterloo said: “We are delighted to host some spectacular
Lumiere installations in the South Bank and Waterloo, including Emma Allen’s work in Leake
Street under Waterloo Station. The ever-changing street art in the tunnel provides the
perfect backdrop for Emma’s stunning animated portraits, and is a great place to start or
end your Lumiere journey.
Duko Frankhuizen, Development Manager at LCR said: “LCR is delighted to support Lumiere
arriving south of the river for the first time, with Emma Allen’s inspirational work set to add
another layer to Leake Street’s constantly evolving walls”
Take a look at the below video to get a feel of what is to come!