Featured Artists of Lumiere 2018

The Alchemy of Play

By Aspect Radiance

Psychedahlia Garden

By Tyler FuQua Creations

Berzerkatroid Dragon

By Ron Simmer


By Blazin’ Lily Gals’

The Phoenix Rainbow

By Jimbo Insell, Brady Taylor, Gabrielle Odowichuk, Adam Elliot

Hex Light Obelisk

By Hfour

Amanita Arcade

By Shadow Puppet Productions


By MK Illumination

The Potential Is Yours



By Wendy Morrison, William Gibbs, Gordon Yuen, Nicolas Strange

Infinity Mirror World

By Hfour

The Limitation Of Words To Describe Feelings

By Hfour


By Tangible Interaction

Postures in Protest

By Erdem Taşdelen

Heart of Davie Village

By Jim Balakshin

Aurora Mirror Spheres

By Hfour

Love Begets Love

By Gabrielle Odowichuk and Marie Specht


Aspect Radiance is an exploration into the alchemic symbol for Squaring the Circle. Squaring the circle was a mathematical problem that Leonardo Da Vinci Solved using the Vitruvian Man. The symbol not only represents the philosopher stone but also finding balance within the microcosm and the macrocosm. The Square represents the physical world (four corners, four seasons, four directions) the triangle usually represents fire or transmutation or transformation in alchemy and the larger circle represents the universe. So the symbol altogether means finding the balance with yourself, the physical world, and the universe.

Psychedahlia Garden has a circular bench inside the flowers garden creating a space for ten or so people hang out. The lights inside the flowers are vibration activated. A gentle tap on the leaves or stem will activate the lights. They turn off after about 30 seconds and wait to be activated by the next passerby.

As in the Burning Man tradition of playing with art, this piece allows individuals to sit on the dragon seat to actuate the propane fire effect and the fog machine. The dragon will be well lit with hundreds of LEDs, and the interactive element will be enjoyable for children and the young at heart.

Efflorescence is a garden of otherworldly metal fire flowers. Two towering flowers shoot fire high in the sky, another drips fire downs it’s leaves and into the basin of petals nestled in its roots. Two gnarled stumps hold bowls of fire surrounded by intricate flower benches.

The Phoenix Rainbow is a giant symbol of love, hope and possibility! It dazzles and delights with its myriad of colours and patterns and inspires awe with its impressive size and girth! Constructed with over 4000lbs of aluminum and steel and more than 500 feet of addressable RGB LED lighting, the Rainbow is a feat of both art and engineering! Users can control the various patterns on the rainbow using the Rainbow Registriod.

The Hex light Obelisk is a freestanding 10’ tall hexagonal tower of interactive, voice-controlled LED lights. Three illuminated microphones surround the tower, allowing groups of people to interact with the tower at the same time. It is an engaging way for people to turn their voices into dancing lights.

Hfour custom designed and built illuminating microphones, which contain controllable full-colour led rings of light, cast in a clear, waterproof resin. When someone speaks into the microphone, the microphone itself lights up in vibrant colour, and the lights on the tower being to sequentially activate. It is an immediately reactive interactive component, something that we strive to include in all of our interactive systems and artworks.

The Amanita Arcade is built like a patch of Fly Agaric mushrooms, as you would find it while wandering in the woods. These mushrooms that are reminiscent of our childhoods, and the “Amanita Arcade” offers an interactive game similar to “Simon.”

In the case of our game, each of the mushroom stalks will light up and the player(s) will then have to reproduce that pattern by pushing down on the smaller mushrooms, repeating the pattern.

Shadow Puppet Productions

Returning for the third year, Luna was created by world renowned decorative lighting experts MK Illumination. A bespoke one-off design, Luna was made specifically for Lumiere in recognition to the whales in the waters around Vancouver.

Luna is named after the well-known orphaned orca whale that inhabited the waters of the Nootka Sound from 2001 to 2006. Separated from his mother at a young age, he spent five years delighting tourists and residents alike off the coast of Vancouver Island.

The white powder-coated frame is 7 metres long by 2.5 metres high and contains over 6,000 LED white environmentally friendly bulbs.

Eugenia, pays homage to an iconic oak tree that has decorated the English Bay skyline for three decades, on top of the famous Beach Avenue residency, Eugenia Place. This installation is made from aluminum and is filled with 7600 colour changing LED mini lights.

Stanley Park is home to one of the largest urban Great Blue Heron colonies in North America. These majestic birds have been nesting in various locations in Stanley Park as far back as 1921.

In November 2018, “Stanley” will complete the lighting trifecta at English Bay. Created by MK Illumination, standing 13 feet tall and boasting 10,320 lights, Stanley pays tribute to Stanley Park’s Great Blue Heron colony.

The Vancouver BUBBLE is a participatory public art platform and an experiment in creating citizen spaces. Employing low tech light projectors, local flora and fauna specimens, and other botanical curiosities we will co-create an immersive environment within the BUBBLE. Upon entry, visitors may play and experiment with materials on hand to create their own visual projections on the inner surfaces of the BUBBLE, which will be seen from both inside and outside. We are curious to see what kinds of stories emerge.

This interactive video installation presents the viewer with some of our world’s most pressing challenges. For instance, an image featuring a polluted ocean along with the statement, “We’ll never clean up our oceans” will provoke the audience to make a decision. Do they let fear and doubt decide our future? Or, do they believe in our potential to create something better? If they choose to engage by walking across the projected image, the scene will begin to change. The once polluted ocean will become clean. The viewer will be given a glimpse into what our future could be, if we choose to believe in our potential to change it.

This project, along with the rest of “The potential is yours” brand campaign, brings to life UBC’s commitment to support those who have the courage and willingness to address society’s largest issues. From areas including sustainability, urban forestry and astronomy, it celebrates the belief that we can create a better future, and highlights what UBC is doing to support both faculty and students realize their greatest potential.

Learn more about how UBC is shaping the future at

P1 is a project designed to spatially express the power of one individual’s influence. It serves as a reminder that everyone has the power to shape their future and influence those around them. Giving an individual a choice to either experience P1 in its “powerless state” or manipulate its spatial qualities of light, shadow and form through the use of foldable panels. The cube demonstrates the space of a new era that adapts and changes itself through digital technology. P1 reacts to participants entering the cube by unfolding its triangulated light panel. The intent is to allow an individual to empower and transform his/her surrounding in hopes that others will be inspired by a divergent interpretation of space.

Our worlds are made and connected by screens. Each day, we log on to our lives. We enter a world so much bigger than the screen itself. The Infinity Mirror World is an experiential installation which takes a moment to playfully manifest that. The internal reflections give the appearance that it is much larger than it is. When standing inside the mirror world, it appears from the outside that the person has stepped in to the video itself. The mirrors are angled slightly inwards so the repeating reflections cause a virtual globe shape to be created, inspiring the name: Infinity Mirror World.

This large community vision board is a space to share thoughts, memories and feelings. When it comes time to write about deep feelings, many of us are at a loss for words. The inexpressible remains just beyond our literary grasp. But we persevere, and try our best to communicate concepts deeper than language, in whatever way we can.
An extension of the Jim Deva Plaza megaphone, and a response to Postures in Protest, this community vision board is a canvas to express yourself through the written word.

Lighting up our thoughts through public art, the ideas transcend from physical to digital as they are shared online. The notion of the Jim Deva Plaza expands as social media has become the new public megaphone.

No community vision board would be complete without a call to action. 2018 will pose an important question. Stay tuned.

Check the hashtag #LimitationOfWords on Twitter and Instagram to see past contributions.

Tangible Interaction’s “Shine” celebrates the West End’s LGBTQ2+ heritage with a participatory light installation that reflects people’s interactions through stunning animated patterns of light and colour.

Comprised of an array of 16 acrylic tubes on a platform with hundreds of responsive LED lights inside each tube, “Shine with Pride” is an open artwork that invites the viewer to step inside and experiment hands-on. Created to be a piece for the whole community, the installation is open and accessible for anyone.

When no one is interacting, “Shine” displays a soothing, pre-programmed animation. However, as people weave in and around the array and touch the tubes, the piece reacts by changing colours and displaying energetic patterns.

“Shine” invites anyone passing by to come into the plaza for a closer look, to play around, and to see how the artwork responds to their movements.

Toronto-based artist Erdem Taşdelen’s Postures in Protest has been adapted for Jim Deva Plaza in the form of six double-sided light box signs.

Curated by Burrard Arts Foundation, the artwork comprises an assemblage of adverbs that describe the ways in which individuals stage protests in popular uprisings. These adverbs, as modifiers of verbs, indicate how specific actions transpire, pointing to the strength and fortitude of those involved in protest.

Installed in a public site in the Davie Village dedicated to the late Jim Deva, the piece honours the activist’s advocacy for LGBTQ2+ rights and his battle against censorship. It is also intended to encourage a sense of pride in those who are fighting against the social inequalities that still persist today.

Since their first recorded history, ‘gay villages’ have played an important role in the increased visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ2+ community. At a time when homosexuality was illegal, very few establishments welcomed members of the queer community. The businesses that did were often only bars, nightclubs, and bathhouses. These businesses were important ‘third places’ outside of home and work where transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, and questioning members of the community could be more open about their sexual orientation and gender identity with less fear of prejudice and arrest.

These early gathering spaces appropriated spaces for safety and support, and fostered a shared sense of identity that celebrated sexuality and gender rather than hiding it. Like the signs of early gay-friendly businesses, the ‘Heart of Davie Village’ gateway sign will be a beacon for the community that will symbolize the reorganizing of heteronormative spaces into more welcoming and safe landscapes. The ‘Heart of Davie Village’ is a recognition of the historical geography of the Davie Village and the contributions of the community towards the political advancements of LGBTQ2+ rights across Canada.

The world can be complicated and overwhelming. It’s important to reflect on them and to realize that we all have our own unique perspective. No matter how much we know another person, we can never completely understand their life and their perspective. Despite that, we help each other to learn and understand the world. The mirror spheres represent the infinite reflecting viewpoints.

Love is a lens through which we view the world but it can also be a prism that changes the very nature of how we see that world. Rainbows represent the beautiful diversity in which humans have the capacity to love each other. Marie Specht and Gabrielle Odowichuk have constructed a cloud-form of inverted umbrellas that will rain jewel-like, heart-shaped lanterns of varying size and construction. Using coloured light, we represent various networks of love and relationships.

Heart-forms will glow from within and pulse with a steady heartbeat, encouraging participants to connect with it on a physical as well as visual level. The hearts will be attached through a collection of delicate strands of addressable lights. Curious participants who spend more time with the piece will be further rewarded when they notice some of the subtle metaphors that speak to LGBTQ+ love, energy exchange and different kinds of relationship networks.