Tonight we drove 50 kms out of Göteborg to the town of Alingsås to see the lights. Every Oktober for the past 10 years, they have creatively lit the Swedish night. During the day, there are workshops and conferences about the impact of light, the environmental aspects of lighting, lighting design, and the future of lighting populated spaces. It's something to be seen.
This is what I consider to be typically Swedish - any excuse to be outside. Tonight was cold (3C) and rainy (boots and umbrellas), but many people were out. There were 6 major installations and several minor ones done by townspeople creatively lighting objects in their own yards. One was a shadow play beside the river. Another was a series of coloured lights dancing in the windows of an old factory building. A third was a street scape with uplit trees and 'rocks' made of wire. The fourth was a pedestrian tunnel which alternated between orange uplighting from under benches and blacklight hearts and snowflakes. Number 5 was a magical playground, complete with lights dancing in bushes and a coloured bottle chandelier suspended between the trees over a couple of benches. Our favourite (though Andrew would argue for the playground) was probably the canalscape of red trees and strings of lights suspended over the water in the canal. The light strings changed colour between white, yellow, green, purple, and red.
It was a really yukky night to be out, but with boots and umbrellas, ski jackets and mitts, it was still a great, memorable evening. I'm sure we'll return next year to see what's new.
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