Lumen 2025: What to Expect at Waterloo’s Amazing Illuminated Art Festival This Weekend

1. POP! — Gentilhomme (Waterloo Public Square). Five colorful characters hidden in monoliths come to life when visitors speak or sing to them. The interactive piece encourages playfulness and creates a lively focal point in the square.
2. Say What You Will — MASARY (outside the Perimeter Institute). A retro payphone records voices and converts them into abstract light animations. The work highlights how tone and sound can be transformed into visual art.
3. Entanglement Pair — Sebastian Bevelander (outside Waterloo City Hall). This light-based work explores paired interaction in a civic setting. The installation responds to paired movement, creating glowing patterns when people interact together.

Installations open on September 20 only:

1. Analog Mayhem — Ed Video Media Arts Centre (Region of Waterloo building).
   The public can experiment with live video and sound mixing using analog and digital equipment. The setup shows how different media tools blend to create art.
2. Ceramic 3D Printer Demonstration — Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery.
   A ceramic printer builds clay objects layer by layer throughout the night. Staff explain the process and show how 3D printing changes traditional craft.
3. Chalk Art Creations — Gillian Elder & Leigh-Anne Stafford (Waterloo Public Library).
   Visitors join artists to make chalk drawings on pavement. The temporary works emphasize creativity and community participation.
4. Chaos and Wonder — Roshan James & Tara Butler (Waterloo City Hall).
   This performance combines poetry, music, and contemporary dance to reflect on human connection with nature. It adapts James’s Pink Moon poetry collection into a staged work.
5. Echo Glow — Create Waterloo (Waterloo Park, East).
   The Silver Lake playground lights up in new colors for one night. Families can enjoy a familiar park transformed by glowing effects.
6. Fireflies — Simon Mark & Jeff Thompson (Waterloo City Hall).
   Visitors see shadowy projections of themselves surrounded by drifting fireflies. Hand-tracking technology lets them “catch” the glowing forms.
7. Firefly Friends — After School Snack Collective (Visitor Information Centre).
   A crafting station teaches participants to make small glowing fireflies from simple materials. The project is designed to be accessible for all ages.
8. From the Heart — Kristina Žetko (Waterloo City Hall).
   A pulsing heart sculpture responds as people leave written notes inside a mailbox-like pedestal. Messages will later be shared online as part of the work.
9. Golden Pretzel — Esther Slevinsky (Visitor Information Centre).
   A large sculptural pretzel combines scent, light, texture, and warmth. Visitors can interact with it directly, even posing for photos.
10. Harmony Through Obedience — James Malzahn (Waterloo City Hall garage).
    See projections of an AI-generated singer and fictional propaganda device fill an underground space. The work raises questions about surveillance and control.
11. Lights of Destiny — Aoe Girard (Waterloo City Hall).
    Twelve glowing fabric lanterns represent the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Each is hand-painted to reflect its cultural symbolism.
12. Lucid Flow — Ivan Rys (Visitor Information Centre). Animated color fields shift with real-time wind and temperature, producing different palettes as conditions change. A focused beam aimed at the structure triggers a short, distinct sequence. Because it is weather-responsive, no two viewings are identical across nights. Its environmental mapping also makes it a useful checkpoint for wayfinding in the festival area.
13. Lux Array — Luxonus (Steps of the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery). A procession of offset squares creates parallax effects accompanied by ambient sound. Motion sensors near the first square unlock additional patterns when viewers approach.
14. Luxtriplicata — Johan Fredrik Källman (William Street Lot). Rotatable prism cubes refract white light into a 360-degree spread of color that visitors can shape by hand. The tactile interface turns spectators into co-authors of the image.
15. Zero Views Museum — Jayden Hsiao et al. (Waterloo Public Library). A VR gallery displays digital works that disappear after their first viewing. It challenges ideas about popularity and permanence in online art.
16. (r)evolution — Mark Walton (Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery). A photo series documents places in Waterloo Region that are changing or disappearing. It connects the city’s evolving landscape to the festival’s theme of transformation.
17. Pipe Cleaner Portrait — Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery. Participants bend pipe cleaners into portraits and shine lights to cast shadows. The activity invites playful experimentation with line and form.
18. Quantum & Engineering Uptown Lab — University of Waterloo (Library). Hands-on stations introduce visitors to quantum science and engineering. Activities are designed for families and highlight Waterloo’s research strengths.
    Shadow Play — Paige Smith (Waterloo City Hall).
    Projected shadow puppets invite the audience to step in and create their own figures. The piece mixes recorded and live interaction.
19. 星星 (Sing Sing) — Germaine Liu (Caroline & Erb). Audiences activate musical “stars” with their devices, creating shifting constellations of sound. The piece emphasizes collective listening and play.
20. Step Into the Past and Let Your Imagination Glow! — City of Waterloo Museum (Library). Visitors design glowing grain sacks using stencils and markers. The project connects local milling history with creative expression.
21. Trail — M. Joakim (Grist Mill). Motion sensors light up a bridge in response to movement. Individual and group crossings create different patterns.
22. Yöti — Jean-Philippe Côté (Waterloo City Hall). Old pen plotters draw portraits of visitors over several minutes. Each person leaves with a unique printed image.
    Panégoptique — Jean-Philippe Côté (Waterloo City Hall).
    Repurposed iPhones merge two visitors’ faces into hybrid portraits. The work examines identity, technology, and obsolescence.
23. Nostalgia Mechanica — Treehouse Collective (Waterloo City Hall). Objects hidden in a mirrored box appear under shifting light. Visitors are encouraged to find items that spark childhood memories.
24. sPARK! — Dark Rooms (Waterloo Park shoreline). This pop-up dance party lights up Silver Lake’s shoreline with glowing creatures, lasers, and large-scale light effects. Five family-friendly DJs provide an energetic soundtrack, turning the park into a lively outdoor club.
25. Lion Dancers — LUXE Nail Bar (Waterloo Public Square). Short lion dance performances take place throughout the evening, bringing traditional movement and drumming to the festival. The lively displays add bursts of energy and cultural heritage to the square.
26. GLOW TOGETHER: A Community Mosaic of Belonging — Waterloo Public Library. Festivalgoers can decorate tiles that become part of a glowing, blacklight-reactive mural celebrating diversity and connection. The piece will grow throughout the evening as more contributions are added, eventually forming a permanent artwork at the library. A playful window puzzle invites participants to solve a code and claim a reward, blending community art with interactive discovery.