Amsterdam Light Festival
Every year during the winter days in Amsterdam, the city hosts a Light festival. Which focuses on street art that can be seen in the dark. This is similar to London’s Lumiere and Winter lights shows.
2020 was the eighth year of the festival and focuses on the idea of Disruption. A sudden disturbance in nature or a butterfly effect or events triggered at one single movement. We were lucky enough to explore the last few days of the light festival during our weekend in Amsterdam. Here are a few tips and photos of the light festival.
To find out more about the festival check out the link here. – https://amsterdamlightfestival.com/en
A ‘disruption’, or sudden disturbance, usually comes at an inconvenient time and has to do with conflict, chaos or even danger. Think of an earthquake or a financial crisis. We, therefore, try to avoid disruptions as much as possible. – amsterdamlightfestival.com
Walk, Boats or Bikes?
There are a few different ways you can enjoy the festival.
Walking – This is the route we eventually took for several reasons: 1. My boyfriend is a photographer and enjoys taking time to get the right angle and takes time in setting up his shots. 2. We had more freedom on the schedule, when to arrive and when to stop off for dinner. and finally 3. It was a chance to explore other parts of the city we wouldn’t have previously been exposed to. There are a couple of information points on the route and maps you can pick up so you can follow the route. A majority of the route was easy to follow but I do remember taking a few incorrect turns, but you can see pieces in the distances that help you navigate the way.
By Boat – With Amsterdam being the city of canals., several boat companies offer boat rides that follow the official festival route. I found a few packages that include a tour of the A’DAM Tower and experiences and they all seem great. Following from that, the experience varies from year to year. This year, from reading reviews, it came across that walking the route would allow you to enjoy the pieces a lot more. I would say the benefit of taking the boat tours is you’re less likely to get lost and you can sit down and relax a bit more.
By Bike – The Amsterdam way is by bike – doing so has a lot of benefits of walking and speeds up the entire process and you can go at your own pace. However, the only few downsides would be that the festival is at night so getting around would be more difficult to get around and then the extra potential hassle of carrying a bike around. Which is why overall we decided towards taking a walk.
ArtWork
- THE CRACKS
- ALL THE LIGHT YOU SEE
- THE ICE IS MELTING AT THE PØULES
- BIG BANG
- REMIND EULJIRO FREEDOM
- SURFACE TENSION
- END OVER END
- BETWEEN THE LINES (cranes)
- ICEBREAKER (ice on river)
- DE NACHTLOERRRDERS (Eyes)
- HIDING IN THE WOLF’S LAIR (wolf)
- BUTTERFLY EFFECT
- NOTHING HOLDING US (firework)
- NACHT TEKENING (bridge at night)
- ATLANTIS (under water city)
Hope you enjoyed this post, let me know if you have ever been to Amsterdam or the light festival. I thoroughly enjoyed the light festival and would love the chance to visit Amsterdam again to see how other artists interpret other themes.
