Canary Wharf Winter Lights 2023

20th January 2023

After a two year hiatus caused by that thing  it was good to return to Canary Wharf for the annual Winter Lights Festival, a display of Illuminated artworks situated around the business district on London’s Isle of Dogs. Some of these were quite impressive and some were a bit meh to be honest but it made for an interesting - and free - evening out.

 

 

 

Some, such as In(visible) by Daneil Popescu you actually get to walk inside although I baulked at the opportunity to queue up for ages in the cold night air to wander through the dangling fibre optics of Anima.

 

Down at Westferry Circus there were super-Instagramable elephants although I don’t think the guy with the massive LED floodlight on top of his camera had the right idea for photographing illuminated art.

 

 

 

 There were some really good London skyline views if you turned your back on the elephants though.

 

 

 

This year as part of the festival Canary Wharf Middle Dock got a visit from Luke Jerram’s Floating Earth  where it prompts the difficult discussions we all need to have about climate change and what we, as individuals and wider society, can do to make our lifestyles more sustainable. From London it will be going to Brescia in Italy. I hope that it will be travelling sustainably.

 

 

 

 I made a short video showing some more of the exhibits

 

 

 

 And there are some more photos on Flickr here.

 

 

 

 I look forward to doing it again next year.

London Xmas lights 2021

 

27th December 2021

Carnaby Street, butterflies, always a sign of the winter months.

 

 

 

St. Giles Square, illuminated trees in the shadow of Centre Point.

 

 

 

Regent Street St. James angels.

 

 

 

Also in Regent Street.

 

 

 

New Bond Street, crown? bowl?

 

 

 

Oxford Street, dangly stars, a bit dull, time to bring back the lasers?

 

 

 

 

The lights, the lights!

Sunday 24th November

It is that time of year again. You can barely move it the supermarkets for piles of tat that no one needs to buy (the war against single-use plastic seems to have been temporarily suspended) and the shelves are full of festive fayre much of which will have passed its use by date before the big day.

On the plus side however it's also the time of year that the lights go on. Town centres - or their modern replacement, Shopping Centres - across the land put up their best seasonal illuminations in an effort to draw as many spenders as possible in competition with other local towns. So far, so standard.

As well as your usual Christmas Lights from Bromyard to Oxford Street there are more ambitious, or maybe more artistic displays. Canary Wharf has "spectacular light installations and interactive art"  but you'll have to wait until January to see that. In the meantime you can already see some spectacular light installations and interactive art by heading up the Metropolitan or Jubilee lines to Wembley Park. (Other transport choices are available if not coming from central London.)

For here near the home of English football (that will probably be disputed by those in the north) and the London Designer Outlet, is Winterfest 2019. Or Christmas in technicolour as it says on their website. The website also says that you can, "Experience Wembley Park’s first-ever immersive winter lights trail. Artists from all over the world have curated light and sound artworks that will transform Wembley Park into an immersive playground of unique art installations, combining light, sound and touch into a truly multi-sensory experience. From the acclaimed Sonic Runway, making its European debut in Wembley Park via Nevada’s Burning Man festival, to London’s tallest-ever LED light Christmas Tree, get ready to be enveloped by a technicolour trail of lights and interactive sounds."

And that's a pretty good description, as I discovered on a Sunday evening with nothing better to do. Here's a flavour (with cheesy music but no sleigh bells I promise) of what I found:

Winterfest is on until January 3rd so they'll be hoping you'll come and see it and spend money on Christmas presents and in the Boxing day sales. Or you could just go and see the lights - there is no admission charge. I succumbed to the lure of a Pret filter coffee as it was a chilly night so I suppose they acheived their aim of attracting more trade to the tune of £1 😀

Season's Greetings.

Winter Lights

Sunday 20th January 2019

From Tropical London to decidedly not tropical Canary Wharf. Wrapped up well to see the Winter Lights exhibition of art installations in and around Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf Shopping Centre, and Jubilee Gardens.

It was a tad nippy down the docks under the full moon.

Last Parade - Alexander Reichstein

Submergence - Squidsoup

Floating Islands - Mürüde Mehmet

Flow - Squidsoup

Floating Islands - Mürüde Mehmet

Prismatica - Raw Design

Everyone's photo op.

Two Hearts - Stuart Langley

More photos here Flickr Album but photographs don't really capture the exhibits as well as video: