Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival 2024: first look at this month’s illuminations adding sparkle to E14

From a flickering flame illusion to geometric monoliths, here’s what you can expect to see

Ben McCormack17 January 2024

Here’s a welcome ray of light to brighten the January gloom: the Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival is returning to E14 from today until January 27. The free attraction, now in its eighth year, will feature 13 installations from UK and international artists displayed over 11 nights in an outdoor immersive light exhibition.

Visitors are encouraged to download the Winter Lights map from the Canary Wharf App to help them navigate the exhibition. This year’s festival includes five pieces not previously displayed in the UK, as well as five brand new commissions. Key works include Sign by Vendel & De Wolf, a flickering mass of LED flames, Biophilia by Frankie Boyle, a three-dimensional creation harnessing the power of the visible light spectrum, and Vessels by Limbic Cinema, a smoke-filled sculpture where science, technology and culture collide.

“Viewing Vessels should be an intimate, collective and meditative experience, that provides a unique opportunity to get close and engage with the beauty and flow of light,” says Tom Newell of Limbic Cinema. “We would encourage people to stand right in front of the pyramids to witness the twisting, dancing light and shapes shifting in time with our melodic soundtrack.”

Canary Wharf’s Winter Lights

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Festival visitors will be able to enjoy a bite to eat in-between viewing the installations from pop-up vendors serving street food and hot drinks. There will also be fire-roasted marshmallows being toasted in in Jubilee Park and, of course, all the cafes, bars and restaurants around Canary Wharf.

“Light is the subconscious language that we communicate by, whether we are aware of it or not,” says artist Frankie Boyle. “Light changes the way we feel and how we experience the world and each other. When we start dissecting this, we can then start to play with human responses and attention. We live in a world of 2D screens, so when the opportunity arises to witness bright colours and movement in a three-dimensional world we gravitate towards it, like an open fire or a lit candle.”

The full list of artists, installations and locations are as below:

1. On a Wave of Light, Those Guys Lighting, Riverside

2. Neuron, Juan Fuentes, Riverside

3. Sign, Vendel & De Wolf, Westferry Circus

4. Les Oiseaux, Simon Chevalier, Cabot Square

5. Marbles, Gertjan Adema, Wren Landing

6. The Peace Poem, EEA, Adams Plaza

7. Vessels, Limbic Cinema, Crossrail Place Roof Garden

8. Biophilia, Frankie Boyle, Crossrail Place Roof Garden

9. In-between, Daniel Popescu, Crossrail Place Roof Garden

10. Submergence, Squidsoup, Montgomery Square

11. Kinetic Perspectives, Juan Fuentes, Water Street