The Lumo Light Festival route in Oulu offers plenty to experience over several days
The programme for the Lumo Light Festival has been published. To mark the City of Culture year, the Lumo programme is more extensive than ever, featuring a total of around 30 installations. The festival works can be viewed from Thursday to Sunday, 19–22 November, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Organised by the City of Oulu, the event will light up the city from 19 to 22 November, marking the culmination of the ten-day Lumo Art & Tech festival, which brings together various encounters between art and technology in the Oulu region.
The festival route of light art begins at ‘The Ugliest Place in Town’, located next to the Autosaari car park, and leads from the city centre through Hupisaaret City Park to the refurbished Oulu Museum and Science Centre, Tiima. The route continues from Hupisaaret islands via Linnansaari to the Market Square and ends at the Pikisaari light art trail. The festival route is approximately six kilometres long, so there is plenty to see over several days.
“The Capital of Culture year has enabled international development of the Lumo Light Festival. Through this work, we have been able to raise the festival’s artistic standard and expand our partnerships. This year marks the beginning of a new era for Lumo,” says Project Manager Leevi Lehtinen.
The Lumo Light Festival returns to the Market Square after a hiatus caused by years of major renovation work. The Market Square will feature the work Abstract by the French group Collectif Coin, which the Lumo Light Festival team has been dreaming of for years.
Jere Suontausta’s piece Reason will be projected onto the wall of Oulu Theatre, where an element captured under a microscope is magnified into a 70-metre-wide composition spanning the entire wall.
On the façade of Central Library Saari is Vappu Rossi’s work Alkusynty / Generatio spontanea. The installation is part of the FLASH Light Art Biennial, which can also be explored at Galleria MABD, along the Pikisaari waterfront path, and at AaltoSiilo. During Lumo, the Finnish Light Art Society FLASH is also organising a FLASH seminar on light art at Tarkastamo on Friday 19 November.
The work Hydra & Lotus, created by the French collective Module, will be on display in Linnansaari for 10 days, from 13 to 22 November, unlike the rest of the festival works. The work appears as a huge, sinuous figure – a giant snake unfurling across the ground, whose winding form invites visitors to follow its path.
This year’s annual community-based artwork for the Lumo Light Festival is Yuki Frame, a digital interactive video installation by the Japanese artist Fujimori. Seventy-five school classes from Oulu have been creating the snowflakes featured in the work. Yuki Frame is on display in the foyer of the new Tiima Museum and Science Centre.
Once again this year, the Lumo art trail features stalls run by Oulu-based clubs and businesses, where visitors can buy hot drinks and light snacks.
The full programme for the Lumo Light Festival can be found on the Lumo website.