Created and produced by the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, LUMINO is firmly established as an essential Montreal winter event. For 15 winters, this free and original urban experience has been fulfilling its mission of transforming the city’s core into a celebration of light and creativity highlighting Montreal’s Nordic character. Until March 9, 2025, the event features its most extensive program yet, with 30 captivating and luminous installations in public space. For the first time, they even include several indoor installations. Daily from sunset to 11 p.m., LUMINO invites visitors to enjoy winter to the fullest by exploring luminous creations– works that bring warmth and colour to the cold months.
This year, more than 30 works – 14 outdoors, 11 indoors, 7 video projections – will be unveiled in phases over the next four months. The works, created by 15 studios and 20 artists both local and international, will offer visitors a refreshed experience throughout the winter with contemplative and participatory installations.
Marquee works to discover
The public will enjoy an impressive set of outdoor installations all winter. Posted on Sainte-Catherine and St-Urbain Streets, Talking Heads by Limelight Art (Hungary), is already the talk of the town, with its two heads made up of 4,000 light-emitting diodes that interact with each other to produce facial expressions in different colors and conduct real conversations through light. On Esplanade PVM at Place Ville Marie, Éloge de l’air by Chevalvert invites members of the public to make an enormous 5-metre banner float in the air, and Cercle Polaire by Jason Carter, one of Canada’s most exciting and accomplished contemporary Aboriginal visual artists, and M.A.D. Collectif, invites visitors to immerse themselves in the world of majestic Far North fauna. Lustres by TILT, on the parvis of St. James United Church, is a unique open-air ballroom experience; Biolumen by Rahda Chaddah and RAW Design, at the Palais des congrès, is a unique contemplative experience inspired by bioluminescent oceanic organisms. Orb by Spy transforms the Place des Arts Esplanade with 90 convex discs made of polished steel.
Quebec’s artists at the heart of LUMINO
Chaleur Humaine is a piece by Anne Lagacé that resembles a suspended sun. It brings colour and warmth to Place Pasteur. Les Fabuloscopes by La Camaraderie with Eruoma Awashish, set up in front of the Grande Bibliothèque, invites passers-by to create stroboscopic animations. A major piece is 1000 Visages by Alejandro Figuerroa of +Amor, facing the Esplanade Tranquille skating rink, is a colossal 12-metre archway with 1779 moving mirrors. L’orchestre endormi by Ottomata, is an interactive light-and-sound installation lets the public awaken all the musical culture slumbering on Saint-Denis Street. These artists are just a few of the 20 LUMINO creators from Quebec.
Unprecedented indoor experiences
This year, LUMINO’s programming is also enhanced with indoor installations, open to the public. The works include Équilibre : Tensio by Guillaume Bourassa and Francis Théberge. Located at the entrance to Le Central gastronomic food court, this dynamic immersive installation plays with perception. Apparently chaotic, it becomes a harmonious structure when viewed from a certain position. With VORTEX, artist Nicolas Paolozzi stages an encounter between light, water and geometry. Positioned above the Complexe Desjardins fountain, this immersive work provides a poetic sensory experience. Meanwhile, an interactive work called Cinétique, by Ottomata, is located inside The Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth. Its dozens of luminous stems, arranged in a circle, invite the public to explore the invisible kinetic forces that surround us and shape our everyday lives. Inside Place des Arts, the public is invited to discover Kaléidoscope: A Social Media Trinity by Alejandro Figueroa of AMOR+. The installation explores the impact of social media through a reflection on the creation, dissemination and consumption of content. LUMINO also occupy the Balmoral block with six experimental works curated by three local galleries: perte de signal, Elektra Galerie and Eastern Bloc. The public will have an exclusive opportunity to discover Microstars by Charline Dally and Gabrielle HB, Porteur de Lumière by students from NAD-UQAC, Afflux by Jade Delobre, Mechanicolor by Stéban SanFaçon, Chasing Waterfalls by Hidden Edges and Matière Première by Yan Breuleux.
Video projections to enliven winter nights
Every night, the public can enjoy video projections that transport them to immersive visual worlds. Étrangement satisfaisant by COLEGRAM illuminates the façades of Édifice WILDER | Espace Danse, UQAM’s Pavillon Président-Kennedy and the wall adjacent to Saint-Laurent metro station, with a series of three video projections riffing on online culture and videos. On the façade of the Grande Bibliothèque, Hyperobjects, by artist Aude Guivarc’h, invites viewers to ponder the ephemerality of seemingly permanent and unchanging things. Lastly, the Esplanade Tranquille skating rink once again presents the interactive video projection Au bord du lac Tranquille by Mirari and Normal studio, taking Montrealers and visitors on a dreamy journey through Quebec’s Far North.
15 years of creativity, digital innovation and international success
Since LUMINO’s inception, the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership has produced 25 works for the event, and presented more than 50, showcasing installations and video projections by dozens of creators.
LUMINO: 30 Luminous Works to Discover Until March 9th 2025 in Montreal, Canada
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