Lux Festival Helsinki 2020

It was the first time I had ever taken one of those famous cruises that set sail from Stockholm. It was my first time in both Helsinki and Finland. My first Lux Festival. The best of traveling and, in extension, of assisting to any festival, is to not have any previous expectations. And this is how I spent two nights in the finnish capital.

Helsinki in winter, fortunately much warmer than I spected, looked grey and flat. Such perception is fully conditioned, basically, by its brutalist and sovietic architecture. Nevertheless, the Festival fosters the people and makes the centre as vibrant as any other European city. As it is pointed in its website: “The experience created by the power and beauty of light encourages people to get outside and enjoy the winter festival during the darkest time of the year, even in the freezing temperatures” luxhelsinki.fi

Within a total of 9 artistic instalations, I would like to highlight the following ones:
– The Bridge, by M4 artists, Jurga Marcinauskaité and Kotryna Čalkaitė
This instalation invited the visitor to cross a chromatic tunnel, light up in red. Not only was my evident preference to this colour the thing that made me enjoy it. There was some laughter between the visitors, who really did not know what was going on. Nevertheless, we let the instalation embrace us, or swallow us.
By writing this post, I read about the concept behind and what the artists wanted to transmit, It is as simple as just evoquing joy and warmth in such cold weather. In my opinion, the objectives were achieved.

– Magic mirror, by Meri Ekola.
It was nothing but a demonstration of taking great advantage of the resources and Helsinki’s environment. It was enough to take a picture with the mobile phone to realize about the metaphor.

Overall, by remembering the Festival, I would say those two pieces were the simplest ones in the tour. No programs, big structures, codes or any kind of digital systems. Sometimes, and especifically in this field, less is more.