A duo of light festivals open in London this month, illuminating the dark January nights in the capital.
Winter Lights, a free, annual illuminations festival in Canary Wharf, returns on 16 January. Plenty of glowing installations are dotted about among the skyscrapers, including inside shopping centres and alongside the water.
The full list of things to look out for is now available on the Canary Wharf website, and a map should be available closer to the time (though we've found such diagrams to be of questionable reliability in the past).
Some of the light artworks will be familiar to anyone who's visited Winter Lights in previous years. Adam Decolight's fairylight-strewn Sasha Trees are back, moving from last year's Westferry Circus location, to a new public park at Ten Bank Street. Julius Popp's bit.fall is back over the docks, an illuminated waterfall featuring words derived from live news sources ('Trump' featured heavily two years ago).
There are plenty of new things to see in 2020 too. We're particularly intrigued by Canada Square Park's Bra Tree, a nod to the American ski slope tradition of throwing your bra onto a tree. Aquatics by Philipp Artus is also a new one, allowing you to draw and design your own sea creatures, before watching them come alive in projections on a wall. See the full programme here.
If that's not got you lit with excitement, head out west to Chiswick House & Gardens, where Lightopia begins on 22 January. It's a new event by the team behind the venue's previous Magical Lantern Festival, and after stints in Edinburgh and Manchester, it finishes up its winter season with this five-week London run. It promises to be a lot more interactive than its predecessor though.
A 10m tall illuminated tree forms the centrepiece of the event, with 20 drums surrounding it which can be used to change the colours. Elsewhere, an interactive floor mat creates music when stepped on, something that's proved popular with younger visitors in the other locations.
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If that all sounds like too much hard work, there's plenty to look at including three-storey high lanterns, a rainbow tunnel, angel wings, an 18m-wide pulsating peacock, and a field of 70,000 flickering roses. In short, you'll be seeing Lightopia all over Instagram.
Winter Lights 2020 takes place around Canary Wharf, 16-25 January 2020. It's free to visit, and runs 4pm-10pm each night. Take a look at our guide for where to and drink in Canary Wharf while you're in the area.
Lightopia is at Chiswick House and Gardens, 22 January-1 March 2020. Tickets are £20 adult/£13 child and need to be booked in advance.
