The Lumo Light Festival shines brighter than ever during the Capital of Culture year
Organised by the City of Oulu, the Lumo Light Festival will illuminate the city more brilliantly than ever from 19 to 22 November. The event will now run for four days. The art trail will feature 23 artworks, with artists coming from 13 different countries. The theme of the Lumo Light Festival is ‘The Other Side’, which is reflected not only in the artworks but also in the event’s visual identity.
The Lumo Light Festival marks the culmination of the ten-day Lumo Art & Tech festival programme, which brings together various encounters between art and technology in the Oulu region.
As last year, the art trail runs from the city centre to Ainola Park, the Oulu Art Museum, the new Tiima Museum and Science Centre, the islands of the river delta, and ends in Pikisaari. The final stop on the art trail is part of the Light Art Biennale organised by the Finnish Light Art Society FLASH, along Pikisaari’s refurbished nature trail.
The installation Hydra & Lotus, created by the French collective Module, will be on display on Linnansaari for 10 days from 13 to 22 November, longer than the rest of the festival works. The artwork appears as a huge, sinuous figure – a giant snake unfurling across the ground, whose winding form invites visitors to follow its path.
Polish Ksawery Komputery brings Flux – a work that explores human communication and has toured the world – to Valve Hall at the Valve Cultural Centre. This impressive interactive audiovisual installation encourages people to interact with the work via high-speed cameras.
This year’s annual community-based work for the Lumo Light Festival is Yuki Frame, a digital interactive video piece by Fujimori from Japan. The work is based on snowflakes programmed by schoolchildren from Oulu. Yuki Frame is on display at the new Tiima Museum and Science Centre.
Janne Ahola’s video mapping installation Return of Memories will be projected onto the façade of Oulu Cathedral, completing Ahola’s trilogy of works there. The previous instalments of the series, The Traveller and The View, were featured at the Lumo Light Festival in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
The Hupisaaret Summer Theatre will serve as the stage for Finnish light artist Marko Häkkinen’s work The Connection IV. This immersive audiovisual experience explores networks of both visible and invisible connections, where it is often difficult for us to estimate the consequences of the changes taking place within them.
The full programme for the Lumo Light Festival will be published on 16 October.
Lumo Light Festival website