Lux Helsinki sheds some light on the Finnish capital in its darkest winter hour with comforting annual regularity (January 8–12 in 2025). Artists from Finland and all over the world create a glowing urban gallery of colour, warming the city’s soul in the void that remains when Christmas and New Year’s Eve have come and gone.
The free festival offers a recommended trail complete with official guide and map, and combines established works and specially commissioned installations.
Exact weather conditions are hard to predict in early January, but they’re always likely to be chilly. Over the years Lux Helsinki visitors have braved everything from sleety blizzards to bone-freezing Arctic blasts.
The light studio Ramboll transforms Helsinki’s iconic Finlandia Hall with an installation that represents the preciousness of clean water. Photo: Tim Bird
“Lantern Park,” surrounding Hakasalmi Villa, is an annual Lux favourite, an enchanted display of swaying, dreamlike lights by local children, students and artists. Photo: Tim Bird
UK artist Tim Etchells designed an installation at Helsinki’s new showpiece central library, Oodi. The poetic slogan “We wanted to be the sky” is a quote from the Cat Stevens song “Colours and Kids.” Etchells says, “Art is always different when placed in a dialogue with different environments.” Photo: Tim Bird
Never too cold for ice cream: A well-known Finnish vender offers samples of its new products to Lux visitors. Photo: Tim Bird
“Grid,” by light artists Pekka Korpi and Otto Suojanen and sound artist Antti Nykyri, brings a six-metre wooden frame to life with geometric shapes. Photo: Tim Bird
One of the most transfixing and spectacular installations at Lux 2019 was “Large Pendulum Wave” in the neighbourhood of Töölö, by Ivo Schoofs of the Netherlands. Photo: Tim Bird
“Large Pendulum Wave” is a light installation representing “the poetry of mathematics and the beauty of physics.” Photo: Tim Bird
Lux Café provides physical warmth to supplement the spiritual nourishment of the light installations, while projections by Ramboll cover Finlandia Hall in the background. Photo: Tim Bird
Italian artist Marco Brianza transforms the Nordic region’s biggest outdoor advertising display, on the side of the Music Centre, with “Moonlight,” a digital reminder of the illuminating power of nature. Photo: Tim Bird
The 40 works in “Ultraviolet Gallery,” by the all-female collective Mimmit peinttaa (meaning “chicks paint”) show animals, portraits, historical buildings and graffiti, and are arranged to form a passage in Finlandia Hall’s forecourt. Photo: Tim Bird
In the yard behind the National Museum, Mexican artist Ghiju Diaz de Leon’s piece “Shelter Seekers” addresses issues of migration and climate change. Photo: Tim Bird
“The End of the Digital Age” is Mikko Kunnari’s mesmerising, shifting display above the door on the corner of Sanoma House, marking the start of the Lux adventure. Photo: Tim Bird
By Tim Bird, January 2019, updated October 2024
