Amsterdam light festival gives visitors a dazzling experience on long winter nights. Residents and thousands of tourists can enjoy through the canals at night, these light-based artworks.
This year, the 8th of the festival was held between November 28th and January 19th, 2020.
Every year, the best of the hundreds of concepts are selected and presented to the public as an open-air exhibition within Amsterdam‘s unique architecture and city layout.
It is quite enjoyable to watch these works by bike, on foot or private guided ship tours between the canals.
The artworks create impressive views with their reflections on the water.
In addition to the exhibition, several events take place in various parts of the city. The Night Walk held at the Royal Zoo is one of these events.
The main theme of this year is Distrupt: disorder, disruption;
The main idea in the creation of the works can be summarized as follows:
Disruption can cause chaos, conflict or danger, such as a natural disaster or financial crisis. But it also leads to positive change by pushing people and institutions to question, think and act.
With this main theme, 20 artists selected for the exhibition created works that would question, test, attract attention and, in summary, shake up Amsterdam, depict, reflect and criticize the setbacks.
While some artists turned existing architecture into works, some aimed to warn the public about the effects of the human being on nature and climate through their works.
Some examples of exhibited works;
Atlantis
The artist points out that a catastrophe that could be caused by climatic changes, such as the destruction of Atlantis, could be repeated.
De Nachtloerrrders
This work, with glowing eyes in the dark, is intended to highlight the fact that we disturb animal habitats by continuing to light up the sky during the night in our cities.
AD. Empty Domination
The impact of advertisements on people, a work that references the hidden messages they give about what we should think, how we should live.
Amsterdam light festival gives visitors a dazzling experience on long winter nights. Residents and thousands of tourists can enjoy through the canals at night, these light-based artworks.
A visual festival is created by combining art, light, and technology, and following the meaning of the main theme, issues such as environment, climate are also drawn to attention.
Similar light festivals are also held in other cities around the world, such as Lyon, Sydney, Berlin, Ghent, Eindhoven, London.
It is a joyous necessity for people interested in the arts and lighting, to visit these festivals that each of which is a wonderful lighting show!
Sources:
https://www.mr-amsterdam.de
https://www.holland.com
