Canary Wharf’s unique Summer Lights display is back to celebrate the beauty of natural light with a series of colourful outdoor light installations, officially opening on summer solstice.
The outdoor exhibition is openTuesday 21stJune to Saturday 20thAugust, letting visitors take advantage of the long summer days when visiting the showcase that is enhanced by the play of natural light.
The free display includes six of Canary Wharf’s permanent pieces, joined by 11 newly commissioned sculptures. The sparkling and colourful artworks each come to life at sunrise as the daylight shines through, creating beautiful patterns across the ground and nearby structures. In addition to the installations, Louis Thompson presents a spectacular exhibition of hand-blow glass in the lobby of One Canada Square, and Colin Priest’s tour of 8 site specific patterns and poems throughout the estate.
People are invited to visit during daylight hours to see the light artworks play with the sun’s rays revealing ever-changing refractions and colours. To guide visitors through the display, a digital map is available to help visitors navigate their way around the sculptures.
Canary Wharf is home to a vast and rapidly growing collection of artworks including a number of exhibitions in addition to London’s largest collection of public outdoor art which features over 100 works available to view for free around the estate. FromHelaine Blumenfeld’s ‘Looking Up’sculpture exhibition to Camille Walala’s’Captivated by Colour’artwork which reimagines the Adams Plaza Bridge with enchanting geometric shapes and every aspect of the colour wheel. For little ones, the Children’s Art Trail features 12 pieces of art chosen to inspire young minds, plus a handy map to show where to find them.
With hundreds of cafés, bars and restaurants, Canary Wharf offers plenty of options to choose from whether visitors want to grab an iced coffee as they make their way around or book in for a cocktail once the sun starts to set, while new restaurant openings includeHawksmoor, Caravan, Seoul Bird, Marugame Udon, Gallio and Six by Nico.
New artworks include:
Birdby Yoni Alter at Wren Landing
Yoni Alter has taken inspiration from the pointillist movement of the 1880s characterised by the painting technique of applying small dots of paint to build up the whole picture. Here he creates a 3-meter-wide pointillist bird, made of 98 colourful translucent discs suspended in mid-air on wires.
Helixby Calidos at Cabot Square
Specifically inspired and designed for Summer Lights, Helix is a representation of the DNA chain, the basic structure of life. It works with the natural elements: wind gently rotates the structure while sunlight catches and highlights the multi-coloured, reflective metal.
Love Birdsby Atelier Sisu at Jubilee Park
An immersive and naturally kinetic installation. Gliding above the audience the colourful birds flutter in the wind, catching the sunlight and casting mesmerising shadows on the ground.
Lights on Databy FishEye at Reuters Plaza
As visitors enjoy this conceptual piece of city furniture, the sun creates an alluring shadow play filled with colour, reflection and data.
Planet @ Riskby Mark Swysen at Water Street
A welded construction in aluminium representing the eight meridians and the Arctic and Antarctic polar circles in a huge see-through globe. On a sunny day the installation will appear to radiate through the reflection of sunlight in the central cylindrical mirrors.
Infinity and Beyondby Martin Richman at Harbour Quay Gardens
This artwork offers a layered and visually ambiguous experience of Harbour Quay Gardens, presenting infinite reflections of adjacent buildings and multi-image patterns of the surroundings within each structure.
Expanded Landscapesby Nathaniel Rackowe at Harbord Square
Timber studding and scaffolding netting are used to create layered panels that overlap and shift, becoming transparent and then opaque by turns. As natural light filters through, it will create shadows that change colour as the sun moves through the sky.
Gleammhhhby OGE Design Group at Upper Bank Street
Art sculpture entirely powered by nature that actively creates wonder, awe and satisfaction by harnessing the natural elements of sunshine and wind, creating fantastic moving colourful reflections and colourful shadows and playing tunes from a music box.
The Long and Winding Roadby Ottotto at Harbour Quay Gardens
Made from corrugated drainpipes on a steel structure, this installation encourages people to walk within and be bathed in yellow light streaming through the pipes.
O.T. 1131by Stefan Reiss at Crossrail Place Level – 1
An originally digital drawing is transformed into three-dimensional space using real, tactile materials. The digital is transformed into a multicoloured, mesh surface allowing natural daylight to interact with, and bring life to the artificial, digital design.
Love IRLby Stuart Langley at Adams Plaza
A captivating sculptural heart acts as a jewel-like beacon composed of intersecting linear lines and shards of colour.
Ebb and Flowby Louis Thompson at One Canada Square, lobby, curated by Jacquiline Creswell
Ebb and Flow presents 13 glass installations in the lobby of One Canada Square, with each blown or solid sculpted glass artwork telling a different story.
An Hour of Glassby Colin Priest, throughout the estate
An Hour of Glass is an artwork walk highlighting glass persepctives in and around Canary Wharf waterside. Through patterns and poems, the all-weather artwork encourages environmental awareness and a sense of time.
FREE guided tours by Colin Priest are heldat 11am on Sunday 10th,Saturday 16thandFriday 22ndJuly. [email protected] reserve a space.
