Those of you who love strolling around the city at dusk can check out the second edition of Light to Night Festival, which returns to the Civic District this month. With more than 30 programs and performances over two weekends and outdoor light art installations scattered around the area for 10 days, the arts festival — a marquee event of Singapore Art Week — is set to splash the city and its cultural institutions in a kaleidoscope of colors.
Themed “Color Sensations”, the event will expand from an anniversary celebration by the National Gallery Singapore to become a bigger festival with the joined forces of The Arts House, Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall, Asian Civilisations Museum, and The Esplanade.
Expect to see public art pieces, interactive light projections, illusionary play with mirrors, performances and more, with highlights such as Chromascope, where visitors can get hands-on by stepping on stomping pads to project visuals on National Gallery Singapore’s City Hall façade; Art Skins on Monuments, which features light projections by 30 local and Singapore-based artists on several building façades; House of Mirrors, which takes visitors on a trippy journey across a labyrinth of endless mirrors on Empress Lawn; and Trip to the Colorscape, where the Esplanade Park tunnel lights up alongside a backdrop of tunes by local bands.
Five artists will also display their commissioned works at National Gallery Singapore, including Filipino artist David Medalla’s sculptural work A Stitch in Time, which encourages visitors to stitch words or small trinkets on the canvas, and Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei’s Sonic Blossom, which sees the classically-trained opera singer step up to one visitor at a time to perform a short rendition of Lieder by Franz Schubert.
If you’d like to chill for a bit, laze around at Art X Social at the Padang, which will host a picnic ground featuring over 80 food and craft stalls. Otherwise, check out other programs on the line-up, which includes poetry recitations, artist talks, and dramatized readings.
Light to Night Festival is on from Jan 19-28, Fri-Sat 5pm-midnight, Sun-Thurs 8pm-10pm at the Civic District. Free.
