Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival 2019 (Things to do in London)

They say the best things in life are free, and I believe that saying to be more than true when talking about big city attractions. For the second year running, I headed into London’s business district of Canary Wharf to check out the Winter Lights Festival taking place there.

We started right outside the Upper Bank Street exit of Canary Wharf station, picking up a map of the festival from one of the helpful volunteers standing nearby. Right in front of us was the first lightwork, trails of hanging lights in a grid called Submergence. Its layout reminded me of the famous lampposts outside LACMA in Los Angeles.

Entering into Jubilee Park, we encountered Light, Stone, Pavement; a hopscotch set that lit up when you jumped into each square. I loved how they’d made many of the exhibits interactive, feeling less like a museum than a living artspace.

Next up was Flow, a volcano like sprawl of lights that ebbed and flowed with different colours like water or lava down the gentle slope. On the water features we found Floating Islands, UV painted plastic bottles in the shapes of animals and plants. I didn’t know whether it was intentional, but having plastic floating on water as it does in so many of our oceans felt somewhat poignant. Please, take all of the plastic out of the oceans and turn it into art instead!

We’d now made our way to Jubilee Plaza and Prismatica, spinning gem-like structures that again were great fun and interactive. Bit.Fall was just around the corner but unfortunately not working at the time we walked by. However, it was the same exhibit as last year, so you can read about it on my blog from then if you’d like!

I was really impressed by the next exhibit, Two Hearts, as it was literally two massive beating hearts in the windows of a building across the water. How they got permission to have an exhibit there when the building isn’t even completed yet, I’ll never know.

I like the next one a lot too – Whale Ghost, whose name gives you a good indication of what it was. The skeleton of a whale writhed and swam above our heads all whilst creepy music accompanied it in the background. Very eerie, but extremely well done.

We headed next to Westferry Circus and the utterly beautiful Sasha Trees – luminescent trees shifting in bright colours. I could happily have had all of them as my Christmas trees, and really feel like this should become a permanent exhibit. Perhaps my favourite of all of the lights we saw.

Round the corner in Columbus Courtyard was Blue Neuron, nerve like wires that stretched from tree to tree; Time & Tide, an hourglass like UV activated rope construction; and a smaller version of Prismatica had you missed the first one.

The Cabot Square fountains were dancing with light and music as we approached, and as if they knew I was coming, started to dance to the Star Wars theme tune. I realised how many dancing fountains I’d seen in the last few years alone, from those in Kuala Lumpur to Budapest, and now in the city in which I live.

From here we could see the Heofon Light Maze which acted in some ways like a hall of mirrors in that the reflections of the light off the glass made it difficult to know which way you were going, even though the maze can’t have been bigger than a few metres long!

We turned left onto Crossrail Place, walking through the epilepsy inducing Colour Moves, an optical illusion frenzy that spanned the bridge. In a room to the side was a fascinating exhibit entitled Recyclism, miniature cities created from toy cars and the like. We put on our headphones to hear about these Blade Runner like cities, with the narrator telling us all about how different they were ‘from the cities of the 2020’s’ and in which building Elon Musk ‘now over 100 years old’ resided. Very cool.

Heading down the stairs we saw Aura, or what I think would’ve been better termed Aurora, as the lights reflected off shoots of water to resemble the Northern Lights; and one of the many Angels of Freedom we’d seen floating around, a huge set of wings and an illuminated halo.

On the top deck of Crossrail Place was Vena Lumen, a light bench that matched your pulse with lights, interesting to watch as you saw people become nervous at all those watching them! Also here was Enchanted Connections, which lit up the roof gardens flora as we walked by.

Back on the ground level we found sticks of light called We Could Meet; and Last Parade, shadow-like animals which processed projected along the wall. Looking back at it, I wonder if this too was trying to make a statement (or maybe I’m just reading into it), as the animals we saw were those I would class as endangered, perhaps really heading for their ‘last parade’ and then fading just like shadows do.

And with that, we reached the end of our journey. A pleasant evening of lights to brighten up these rubbish winter days. Catch them while you can!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences at the Winter Lights Festival! Interested in hearing more about my adventures in London, and across the globe? Drop me a follow on Twitter and Instagram @CiarasCountry for more content like this!