Winter Lights Illuminations | Canary Wharf

On Monday night I went to see the Winter Lights installations that are scattered all around Canary Wharf and free to visit. After seeing my friends Haydy’s experience (check out her video here & you can also find her blog SquibbVicious here) and being incredibly envious of the cool footage and photos she had taken, my friend Jessi and I arranged a visit. The Winter Lights beautiful art creations using light technology, made by some of the worlds fantastic & innovative artists and designers, and the pieces range from interactive art, to visual spectacles.

The 30 spectacular light installations and interactive art pieces are scattered all around the Canary Wharf area, illuminating both outside – around the pedestrianised walkways, and inside – some 3 floors down in the ‘Everyman Cinema’ building. I love things like this that are accessible to everyone, with interesting visuals, and best of all: free! London is a great city for short and long term pop-ups and unique experiences, and this is certainly one of them. Last year Lumiere took over central London (check out my blog about it here) with some really cool visual light installations and Winter Lights reminded me of that a lot.

OUR SPECTRAL VISION, LIZ WEST, CROSSRAIL PLACE GROUND LEVEL @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

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Everything is free to view and is open 4pm – 9pm each evening until this Friday 27th January. If you’re hoping to head there before it finishes, make sure you wrap up warm as it’s rather chilly in the evenings at the moment. I’ve listed my 4 absolute favourites below that I think are must sees if you don’t have much time (with explanations of what they are exactly from the Canary Wharf website).

• Our Spectral Vision (photos above) – “Luminous colour and radiant light mixed with the environment in seven large-scale prisms invite visitors to explore their relationship with colour and the science of light. By replicating the diversion of white light, pure saturated colour drenches the space to form a vivid, sensory experience.”
• Angels Of Freedom (photos at the end of this post) – “This travelling light art installation connects people by revealing their beauty irrespective of colour, creed, ethnicity, age, or social status – everyone is an angel in their own way!”
• On Your Wavelength (photos at the end of this post) – “On Your Wavelength has been developed specifically for Winter Lights at Canary Wharf. This interactive light sculpture and music installation is controlled by a participant’s mind via an EEG headset. As their thought patterns change, the electrical data from their brain is used to control the music and create intricate light patterns, which illuminate a large-scale light tunnel fitted with over 30,000 LEDs.”
• Water Wall (photos at the end of this post – unfortunately very hard to photograph well) – “Water Wall is an interactive installation that explores the relationship of movement, shape and sound through the mediums of light and water. A mist screen transforms water into a canvas for bright projections, allowing movement and sound. The images projected onto the mist screen seemingly float over the surface of the water creating a dynamically changing immersive experience.”

Sadly we didn’t quite make it round to see everything before everything was turned off at 9pm, as we got a little carried away taking photos of our silhouettes at ‘The Haze Series’, but they did turn out pretty cool, so…

THE HAZE SERIES, MAX PATTÉ, CROSSRAIL PLACE LEVEL -3 @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

There are loads of people scattered around Canary Wharf with paper maps and leaflets, so you know where to head! But if you want to plan your route before going, you can download your free map here!

If you’re not able to get there by Friday, something along the same vein is the Magical Lantern Festival in Chiswick House & Gardens. I went last year and it was a lovely evening (heads up though – everything is outside, so it does get very cold). The Magical Lantern Festival is around until 26th February 2017 – so plenty of time to plan your trip (follow this link for ticket details)!

Keep scrolling down for loads more photos from ‘Winter Lights’ – special shout out to Jessi for taking the pics featuring me <3

Lx

ANGELS OF FREEDOM, OVE COLLECTIVE / MERAV EITAN + GASTON ZAHR, JUBILEE PARK & JUBILEE PLACE @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

ANGELS OF FREEDOM, OVE COLLECTIVE / MERAV EITAN + GASTON ZAHR, JUBILEE PARK & JUBILEE PLACE @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

THE GARDEN OF FLOATING WORDS, ELISA ARTESERO, JUBILEE PARK @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

OVO, OVO COLLECTIVE, MONTGOMERY SQUARE @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

OVO, OVO COLLECTIVE, MONTGOMERY SQUARE @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

ON YOUR WAVELENGTH, MARCUS LYALL, CROSSRAIL PLACE LEVEL -3 @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

ORIGIN, PHILIPP MOHR & SELEKTIVTON, CROSSRAIL PLACE LEVEL -3 @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

LITER OF LIGHT, MICK STEPHENSON, CROSSRAIL PLACE ROOF GARDEN @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

LITER OF LIGHT, MICK STEPHENSON, CROSSRAIL PLACE ROOF GARDEN @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

TRANSFORMING FROM STARDUST, LORNA CARMEN MCNEILL, CROSSRAIL PLACE ROOF GARDEN @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

TRANSFORMING FROM STARDUST, LORNA CARMEN MCNEILL, CROSSRAIL PLACE ROOF GARDEN @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

WATER WALL, ANDREW BERNSTEIN + GREGORY ST. PIERRE, ADAMS PLAZA @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

WATER WALL, ANDREW BERNSTEIN + GREGORY ST. PIERRE, ADAMS PLAZA @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

BIT.FALL, JULIUS POPP, CHANCELLOR PASSAGE – MIDDLE DOCK @ Winter Lights, Canary Wharf

If you enjoyed this, why not check out my blog about the Lumiere London which was a similar lights festival with unique pieces all around central London last year.