London Winter Lights round-up

I’ve been to four of London’s Winter Lights Festivals. Here’s how it went.

 

Southbank Centre

 

Dotted around the Southbank Centre was the least impressive collection of light artworks I’ve been to this year. Some were not specific to the festival but are permanent exhibits.

 

 

 

 Others were hard to find and in one case I think wasn’t there at all - the promotional material did mention that not all exhibits would necessarily be there at all times. The most interesting exhibits were the animated projections onto the Brutalist buildings but the whole thing was a bit underwhelming.

 

Here’s the Flickr Album

 

 

 

Canary Wharf Winter Lights

 

Always well organised with plenty of stewards (and security guards) to point the way and dish out free paper maps to help you find your way around. A good selection of artworks too. It’s always worth avoiding the weekends when it gets so crowded it’s hard to see the lights, I went midweek so it was much ore relaxed.

 

 

 

 The exhibits were mostly good. Alas one which I think would have been quite impressive was suffering from technical difficulties which stopped it working. The giant one-armed bandit was a bit meh and needed constant interventions from the attendant since no one seemed to be sure what to do. Apart from those there was plenty of light and sound to go around.

 

A Flickr Album

 

 

 

 Better still here’s a video walk around.

 

 

 

 Battersea Power Station 

 

Around and within the iconic power station were eight installations from the arty to the sparkly to the interactive provided something other than expensive shopping to do at Battersea. It’s worth waiting till it’s fully dark to get the best effect and this year ambient light levels seem to have been taken into account which has been a problem previously. Clever illumination meant the building itself was almost an unofficial installation itself.

 

 

 

 All the installations were present and correct. I’m still a bit confused by the kids horse-on-a-spring called “Never Ends” and no one seemed keen to begin.

 

The Flickr Album

 

 

 

and the video

 

 

 

 and finally to Shepherd’s Bush for

 

Here We Glow, Westfield

 

 This was a new one for me. It was a mix of festival specific installations and what I think are part of the shopping centre’s permanent lighting. Eight installations again - if you include the tacky selfie star outside the entrance to the tube station. A couple of the temporary exhibits  were pretty good sound+light works. One you could easily have walked past and missed.

 

 

 

A Flickr Album obviously

 

 

 

and a video

 

 

 

 

 So how did I rank them?

 

1st Canary Wharf, still the largest and best organised.

2nd Battersea Power Station, it’s improved in its second year.

3rd Westfield London, compact and some quirky installations.

4th Southbank Centre, glad I didn’t make a special trip.