Spoonful of Sugar: Lumiere Festival, London 2016

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!!

Starting from 14th to 17th January, the largest lights festival Lumiere hits the city of London. It is time to see the greatest city in the world in a new light.

There are various installations of lights scattered throughout the city, from the iconic places such as the Buckingham Palace and Westminster abbey to the east side Canary Wharf.

I had been looking forward to this festival since the first time I found out about it. Various artists will be displaying their work. My bestie and I started from Oxford Circus, to see the 1.8 London sculpture by Janet Echelman.

The best thing about this installation is that audiences are invited to play with the sculpture using a specially created app - powered by Atom Bank - that manipulates the light and patterns projected onto it. Here's how to do it when you're at the installation:

Using your smartphone, go to Settings and connect to WiFi network ‘Lumiere’
Open the browser on your phone
Go to lumiere.online in your browser
Need help? Ask a Team London volunteer.

Janet Echelman’s sculptures are inspired by fishing nets she first encountered during a trip to India. She has since gone on to exhibit her unique sculptures across the world, from Madrid to Boston, Singapore to Amsterdam.

The second light showcase we went to see is called keyframes.

At first there were just two of these light stickguys chasing each other. Then it turned into something fun as if in a video game. Very cool.

It's highly entertaining with the background music and everything. The showcase is kind of like a game is being played or a comedy number being performed.

Next, just straight ahead is the Luminéoles. There's two of these fishes installation being displayed. Another one is near piccadily, behind the elephantastic installation.

As we went near one of the fishes, the artist was pulling it down (probably to refill the helium gas)

The fish was too near until it hit our heads. =P

Then, we proceed to see the Elephantastic. When we first arrived, there were no display. So we decided to just go and see the others. As we walked by the display again, suddenly it appeared. We walked from the rear to front. haha...I wonder how they make it look 3D, front and back.

The sound is so cute though.

There are many lights displays along Piccadily. One of which is the 195 Piccadily by NOVAK. This installation showcases outstanding 2D and 3D motion design for television and web broadcast along with show-stealing visuals that accompany chart-topping musicians around the world.

Opposite of the Elephantastic installation, at St. James Street are these hanging people called Les Voyageurs (The Travellers).

When it's up close, they actually look like this.

The only female figure (on the right)

Next stop is the installation by Beth J Ross. The words says: For the beloved one longs most. Patience is halfway to happiness.

The hallway at this arcade is gorgeous. It felt like being at Diagon Alley a bit.

With all these oldies and artsy stores. There's this horrifying display of red riding hood and the big bad wolf.

I wouldn't want to step into this hallway alone in the dark and stumble onto this!

Our next stop is Leicester Square Garden where they display the Garden of Lights.

It's sure is spectacular.

There's quite a huge crowd here. Then again, they are everywhere.

You'll get beautiful shots of the garden filled with luminating displays.

We didn't stay long because we were trying to race the time and catch as many displays as we can. We went to Trafalgar Square next to see the Plastic Islands display by Luzinteruptus.

Plastic Islands is inspired by the ‘Eighth Continent’: the ‘Garbage Patch’ of marine litter that accumulates in the North Pacific Ocean. It comments on the alarming rate that rubbish is swallowing large areas of the Pacific Ocean and the lack of action to tackle this problem. Made from thousands of bottles, this installation both awakens and astounds audiences with its message.

Just in front of the National Gallery is the Centre Point lights.

This used to be placed on top of a building.

Later on, we walked to The Strand to see another display called Neon Dogs by Deepa Mann-Kler.

This display was actually located inside a building, by the showcase glass. So it was quite hard to see, with all the people around, plus the display is put on the ground and not suspended like many others. After all the squeezing about to get near, this is what I got.

An older man in front of me shouted: 'It's not worth it!!' after he saw the display. Guess he didn't feel it was worth the trouble of being pushed and squished to see this. hahahaha..Well, as for me, I appreciate art in any form they came. Even if it means squeezing and crushing (I'm the one being crushed and not the other way round), I felt it does worth the trouble.

It started to rain when we arrived, but we decided to head on to the next location while we still have time. We decided to go to Westminster Abbey as it is the nearest one.