Canary Wharf’s free Winter Lights festival returns this month – 07.01.25

• Canary Wharf reveals the 12 spectacular new pieces coming to the ninth edition of its hugely popular light art festival 
• Many artworks are coming to the UK for the first time
• The enchanting light trail will return from Tuesday 21st January to Saturday 1st February 2025

Canary Wharf has unveiled the 12 new artworks coming to its highly anticipated Winter Lights festival later this month, created by some of the world’s most creative and celebrated light artists. Joining its ever-popular permanent pieces, the collection includes two brand new commissions created exclusively for the festival, and four artworks never before seen in the UK.  

Winter Lights is now an annual tradition for many Londoners, and the free-to-attend festival is set to transform Canary Wharf into a luminous landscape for its ninth edition from Tuesday 21st January. 

The festival will explore the transformative and otherworldly qualities of art and light. Combining the real with the surreal, the line-up will take visitors from a towering stack of bathtubs pulsing with light and sound, to a mesmerising tornado of lights orbiting a pylon. Other works include a UK-first illuminated bird in flight, and a larger-than-life portal in Wood Wharf.  

The first of the festival’s two new commissions is Mirage. An immersive artwork that acts as a metaphor for consumers’ relationship with the fabricated mirage of social media. During daylight Mirage reflects and refracts the sunlight as it moves across the sky, and at night the pre-choreographed light show illuminates the artwork in an ethereal and mirage-like way.  

Stitching Light, the second commissioned piece, is a sound and light installation that amplifies the lives and histories of Bangladeshi women living in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets – using traditional Bangladeshi folk style painting and embroidered light thread to tell real life stories. 

Visitors are invited to explore London’s largest free light display as it opens for 12 nights from Tuesday 21st January to Saturday 1st February between 5-10pm.  

Whilst the festival runs, visitors can indulge in a variety of delicious food and drink offerings across Canary Wharf. Mmy Wood Wharf will be hosting a neighbourhood food market in Harbour Quay Gardens, featuring six of their best street food brands. Joe Blake’s will be setting up a charming chalet serving freshly made doughnuts and hot chocolate. Dishoom will be hosting a free Chai pop-up in Wood Wharf, and if visitors fancy something a bit stronger, No35 Mackenzie Walk will be opening its terrace and serving an exclusive light-up cocktail. Other tasty offerings include hot drinks and takeaway pasta from an Emilia’s Crafted Pasta pop-up bar, and mulled wine at The Henry Addington and Humble Grape.  

Those looking to spend a day out visiting the festival can also experience London’s longest running ice-skating rink, based in Canada Square Park, remaining open until Sunday 23rd February.  

Pippa Dale Senior Arts & Events Manager at Canary Wharf Group comments: “Our Winter Lights festival will be lighting up London’s skies once again this month as it transforms the neighbourhood into a large-scale art exhibition, bringing light to these dark January evenings. We’re excited to be able to invite pioneering light creators from across the globe to exhibit in the extraordinary environment of Canary Wharf, bringing our customers and communities together, in what we hope will be our most dynamic show yet.”  

Emergency Exit Arts, who produced the artwork Stitching Light said: ‘We are very excited about Stitching Light. We have had the opportunity to collaborate with Bangladesh-based artists Ruhul Abdin and Oitij-jo who are based in Tower Hamlets. It exemplifies everything we like to do; to tell meaningful stories from people whose voices are seldom heard, and to create a beautiful artwork that will be enjoyed by thousands of people. We can’t wait for Canary Wharf Winter Lights and the reaction to this important piece of work.” 

Art enthusiasts visiting the installations can download the Winter Lights map via the Canary Wharf website or their free app, or pick one up from the friendly event stewards on arrival to help them navigate the exhibition. 

Line-up 

Aj Vana Be by Benedikt Tolar (UK-first) 

Using 32 stacked bathtubs reclaimed from socialist housing in high-rise blocks, Aj Vana Be aims to highlight the urgent need to protect our water resource. The playful yet thought provoking installation allows people to engage and interact with the artwork, turning the monotonous, everyday occurrence of bathing into a novel act, emphasising what a privilege it is to have clean, running water on tap. 

Circa by Limbic Cinema  

Circa represents circadian rhythms and circannual light levels at any given location. Each of the twelve light fixtures represents the average light fall over one month of the year, creating a three-dimensional clock that reflects the location’s light and dark cycles. The sculpture draws attention to our relationship with light, creating a mesmerising display that reflects the awe-inspiring systems in nature that affect human, animal, and plant behaviour, and reveals invisible and overlooked mathematics in biology. 

Error by Vendel & de Wolf (UK-first) 

Typical in all of Vendel & de Wolf’s work is their use of materials that are mass-produced and turned into something that resembles the natural forms of the universe. The swirling blackhole in Error uses prefabricated flickering consumer light fixtures, resulting in a random and out of sync effect, and exhibiting a natural born randomness within the supposed ‘faultless precision’ of technology. It is a striking, abstract visual representation connecting the randomness of the universe with the randomness of technology – sucking us all into the unknown and questioning whether technology can break the laws of nature, or is it like us, eternally bound by it, imperfections and all. 

Wave by Squidsoup  

Wave continues Squidsoup’s ongoing explorations and obsession with elemental themes, particularly water. The project consists of some five hundred individual suspended orbs, points of presence brought to rough light and sound, all in the form of a breaking ocean wave. The orbs collectively create a resonant and dynamic audiovisual experience, where each one resonates in changing harmonies to create an enveloping and entrancing physical presence, to represent a cleansing wave of renewal.

Evanescent Droplets by Atelier Sisu  

Evanescent Droplets are part of Atelier Sisu’s Ephemeral ‘Bubble-tecture’ collection, focusing on the state of impermanence. This temporary immersive, light and sound installation aims to capture the concept of ephemerality and transience as a visual, tangible form: the bubble. By emulating the ethereal quality and magic of bubbles, appealing to our universal playfulness and childlike wonder, Evanescent Droplets encourages the audience to consider the world around them as a space of transience and fragility, like that of a bubble.  

Stitching Light by Emergency Exit Arts with Ruhul Abdin & Oitij-jo (New commission) 

A sound and light installation amplifying the lives and histories of Bangladeshi women who have migrated to England and are living in Tower Hamlets. It weaves their stories together into an immersive sound and light installation, created using traditional Bangladeshi folk style painting and embroidered using light thread – to tell stories which are rarely gathered, told or heard.   

Artificial Humans by Atelier Haute Cuisine (UK-first) 

These warm, glowing figures are lifelike but are also cold and distant, flesh detached from feeling. Modelled from real people through the masterful human hands of Benny & Bernd, Artificial Humans represents what the future could be, questioning if the warmth we feel within still come from the people around us, or are we slowly being dragged down into the world within our devices. 

Mirage by Atelier Sisu (New commission) 

An immersive artwork examining our relationship with the fabricated mirage of social media. During the daylight hours, the disks of acrylic reflect and refract the sunlight as it moves across the sky. At night, the pre-choreographed light show illuminates the artwork in an ethereal and mirage-like way. Accompanied by a unique soundscape, the audience is invited to move through the two halves of the work, experiencing the form, light and sounds from different perspectives. 

Bird Passing By by Luminariste – Benjamin Nesme & Marc Sicard (UK first) 

In response to our declining bird population, Luminariste have created a giant bird designed to sit in urban spaces and encourage us to look up at the sky. Bird Passing By paints a picture of a bird’s complete movement when in flight, made up of sixty-four sections modelled on birds whose flight was captured at different phases. Trajectories of light and sound, animate each frame into a narrative which recounts the migration of a bird crossing different environments, natural or built, peaceful or tumultuous, solo or in a flock. The public is invited to discover the work in its entirety, and from multiple viewpoints. 

Portal by Lucid Creates  

Portal is a monumental public art installation designed to evoke awe and wonder. The artwork stands 13m high, towering above the viewers below. The inside of the giant archway is lined with diffused LED that moves and shifts to create an otherworldly, ethereal display of glowing light. Transporting viewers to a place where anything can happen, where unexpected apparitions appear among the well-known landscapes and spaces the viewers are accustomed to experiencing every day. 

Positive Spin by Liz Harry and Invisible Wind Factory  

Positive Spin is a 5.5m high machine from the collective minds of artistic experience creators Invisible Wind Factory (Kazimier Productions), and illustrator Liz Harry that invites visitors to step up and receive a random fortune. Inspired by a love of summers spent at beach front arcades, it’s part immersive experience and part spectacle, this uplifting artwork aims to share the importance of looking forward positively. 

Illusion Hole by UxU Studio  

Illusion Hole is the sixth artwork in UxU Studio’s “Use Your Illusion” series, where meteor lights are arranged to create a flowing, almost hypnotic experience for viewers. In this piece, light becomes more than a visual effect; it embodies the illusion of tangible substance, blurring the boundary between what we perceive and what exists. 

Permanent:  

Bit.Fall by Julius Popp (Germany) 

Chancellor Passage  

An ever-changing cascade of words created by thousands of perfectly timed falling water droplets. The words are derived from a number of live news sources, with the speed at which information is sourced, exchanged and updated is almost inconceivable, and more fleeting than ever before. The work effectively translates this abstract phenomenon into a visual experience. The isolation of the words from their context is also indicative of how easily meaning can be distorted. 

The Clew by Ottotto (Portugal) 

Cubitt Bridge   

The Clew is made from 100 circles of red light to create a beautiful structure around the Cubitt Steps Bridge. The minimal and elegant structure will create stunning reflections on the water and frame the bridge, making visitors appreciate this every-day object in a new way. 

Shine Your Colours by Tine Bech (Denmark) 

Riverside  

Originally commissioned for Summer Lights 2021, Shine Your Colours, is a multifaceted artwork that allows visitors to see themselves and the world through different colours. For the first time, these six transparent coloured glass panels will be illuminated, lending this artwork a new, exciting dimension. 

Captivated by Colour by Camille Walala (France) 

Adams Plaza Bridge   

Originally designed as part of the London Mural Festival, Walala’s Captivated by Colour has now become a permanent feature of our public art collection. Playing with the long perspective of the tunnel, the colourful design shows an optical pattern that shrinks and elongates as it moves across the bridge. See this iconic piece transformed for our Winter Lights festival, with its rhythmic coloured lights mimicking and enhancing the optical patterns, bringing this spectacular mural to life. 

We Could Meet by Martin Richman (UK) 

Crossrail Place, Level -1, Quayside  

A permanent installation of more than 500 illuminated acrylic rods installed in a water channel. Viewed from above, the programmed illumination regularly changes colour and frequency throughout the day and evening, mimicking the changing environment and seamlessly fusing art and life. 

Elantica ‘The Boulder’ by Tom&Lien Dekyvere (Belgium)  

Crossrail Place, Level -1, Quayside  

Elantica uses discarded circuit-boards to fuse nature and artifice. By mimicking a natural rock formation with electronic materials, the boulder seeks to demonstrate our world’s tendency to create a digital version of reality. The repurposing of e-waste as the art medium for this geometric form indicates a desired pursuit of harmony between nature and technology. 

Lightbenches ‘Classic’ by LBO Lichtbank (Germany)  

Jubilee Park  

Our stunning Lightbenches are firm favourites within the permanent art collection. The colours change, glow and illuminate their surroundings proving that the functional can also be beautiful. Take the weight off your feet as you near the end of our trail at the Lightbenches. 

Please note visitors are encouraged to attend on weeknights, as the weekends get extremely busy. 

For more information on the upcoming Winter Lights festival visit –https://canarywharf.com/whats-on/winter-lights-2025/