Lumiere London

This Week in London – Lumiere London, and London’s future imagined…

by exploringlondon

• The annual festival of illumination known as Lumiere London returns to the capital for a second time from tonight with more than 50 installations lighting up streets, buildings and public spaces. London’s largest night-time festival, installations in this year’s free event – commissioned by the Mayor of London and produced by arts charity Artichoke – are clustered around six areas: King’s Cross, Fitzrovia, the West End, Mayfair, Westminster and Victoria, and South Bank and Waterloo. The installations include Lampounette – located in King’s Cross, it features giant office desk lamps, Entre les rangs – a field of thousands of flower-like reflectors in Lewis Cubitt Park, Nightlife – a luminous secret garden in Leicester Square which plays with the relationship between wild spaces and urban city life and spills out to include illuminated flamingoes flying over Chinatown, and Northern Lights – a recreation of the aurora borealis in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair. The facade of Westminster Abbey is also among the buildings to be lit up with artist Patrice Warrener commissioned to illuminate the Abbey’s West Towers and Great North Door with his work, The Light of the Spirit. There’s a free app to download and a map can be purchased online for download. For more, include a complete programme, head to www.visitlondon.com/lumiere. PICTURE: Westminster Abbey during Lumiere London last year (Paula Funnell/licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

• London’s future built form is up for discussion at a new exhibition opening at the Museum of London tomorrow. London Visions: Hypothetical scenarios of a future presents hypothetical concepts created by leading artists, architects and designers using video installations, architectural narratives and video games. Among the key works on display are: Flooded London – a series of images created by Squint/Opera depicting imaginary scenes of London in 2090 when rising seas have flooded the city; In the Robot Skies: A Drone Love Story – the world’s first narrative shot entirely by autonomous drones operating on autopilot, the film – directed by speculative architect Liam Young and written by Tim Maughan – looks at the possible future use of drones within London council estates; and, Endless Vertical City – a competition-winning design by SURE Architecture which envisions a skyscraper that could house the whole of London. The free display is on show until 15th April as part of City Now City Future, the year-long season of events exploring urban evolution in London and around the world. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/citynowcityfuture.

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LondonLife – London in a different light…

by exploringlondon

195 Piccadilly

Last weekend saw London transformed in a blaze of colour and light as the city hosted its first Lumiere light festival. More than a million people hit the streets over the four nights of the event – developed by creative producers Artichoke and supported by the Mayor of London – to take in the 30 artworks. Above are some of images of British screen stars and directors which were projected on 195 Piccadilly in an installation by Newcastle-based studio NOVAK. Below are some more images from the rather spectacular event. For more on the event, check out www.visitlondon.com/lumiere.

Les-Voyageurs

Above is Les Voyageurs (The Travellers) by French artist Cédric Le Borgne (located in St James) while below is Litre of Light by Mick Stephenson and Central Saint Martin’s students in Kings Cross.

Litre-of-Light

binaryWaves

Above is binaryWaves by LAB[au] while below is Ron Haselden’s Diver depicting an illuminated figure plunging into the water of the King’s Cross Pond Club.

DiverAll images courtesy of Lumiere London.

This Week in London – London illuminated; commemorating Shakespeare’s death; and, of bees and pollination…

by exploringlondon

Westminster-Abbey-west-front• The biggest ever light festival to hit London opens tonight. Lumber London, produced by Artichoke with the support of the Mayor of London and visitlondon.com, will see a host of international artists transform a series of iconic buildings and locations in four areas across the city – Piccadilly, Regent Street and St James’s, Trafalgar Square and Westminster, Mayfair and King’s Cross. The 30 installations include French collective TILT’s Garden of Light featuring giant illuminated plants in Leicester Square, Patrice Warrener’s The Light of the Spirit which envelopes the west front of Westminster Abbey in colour and light, Deepa Mann-Kler’s Neon Dogs – a collection of 12 neon dogs inspired by the balloon dogs seen at children’s parties, this sits near Trafalgar Square, and, Pipette, a colourful installation by Miriam Gleeman (of The Cross Kings) and Tom Sloan (of Tom Sloan Design) which sits in the pedestrian subway, the King’s Cross Tunnel. Other highlights include Julian Opie’s work Shaida Walking, 2015 which will be permanently located in Broadwick Street, Soho, and Janet Echelon’s enormous net sculpture 1.8 London which is strung between buildings at Oxford Circus. The festival runs from 6.30pm to 10.30pm over the next four nights. You can download a free map on the installations or use the free London Official City Guide app to locate them. For more information – including the full programme – see www.visitlondon.com/lumiere.

• A property deed signed by playwright William Shakespeare and one of the most complete first folios of his works have gone on show in the London Heritage Gallery at the Guildhall Art Gallery. Alongside the two documents which dates from 1613 and 1623, the Shakespeare and London exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death – to be commemorated on 23rd April this year – will also display other documents related to the story of London’s playhouses. The property deed – which relates to a property in Blackfriars – is only one of six surviving documents to bear the playwrights authenticated signature while the first folio is one of five of the most complete copies in existence and is apparently usually only brought out for consultation by Shakespearean scholars and actors. The exhibition runs until 31st March. Admission is free. For more on it and other events being run to commemorate the Bard’s death, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/shakespeare400. For more on other events this year, check out www.shakespeare400.org.

• See your art featured in an upcoming exhibition on the importance of bees and pollination by attending a drop-in workshop at Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament next week. The workshop, which will be held from 10am to 2pm on 20th January, will see participants create their own 3D flowers based on famous paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Jan Van Huysum currently in The National Gallery’s collection – all as part of a focus looking at what plants bees are attracted to. The art created in the workshop will be seen in an exhibition A Right Royal Buzz which is the result of a collaboration between The Royal Parks, The National Gallery and Mall Galleries and will be seen across all three venues (Victoria Tower Gardens representing the Royal Parks) from 17th t0 20th February. For more, head to this link.

Send all items for inclusion to exploringlondon@gmail.com.