On the 16^th and 17^th of August, 2019, St. Petersburg International Festival of Light Art "Light nights" in the Palace Park of the Gatchina Museum-Reserve was held.

The theme of the festival this year was "Water". Working on creation of art objects, participants of the festival turn to the theme of "Water" as an element that has many states and qualities. Water is both unknown depths and a mirror-like surface; it is composed of philosophy and emotions, pacification and aggression, love and hate, rise and fall of the tide...

The festival program consistsed of light art installations created by artists from Russia and foreign countries, video mapping on the Jordanian facade of the Gatchina Palace, interactive installations, multimedia fountain show and fireworks in the water area of the White lake, performances and puppet-plastic plays.

As part of the out-of-competition program, guests of the festival saw the 3D-mapping show "Flow" on the facade of the Venus Pavilion produced by the international company "Sila Sveta" which is engaged in interactive installations, projection shows and stage design.

Within the festival the competition of light installations and video mapping was held. The participants of the competition were the students of Russian and foreign universities, artists, designers, multimedia specialists and creative enterprises and design studios. The jury consistsed of experts in the field of lighting design, architects, artists, directors of foreign light art festivals.

The theme of competition was «Reflections». It motivated the authors to find images, associations, metaphors and stories related to the looking glass world, the reverse side of reality.

18 art works had come through to the final of the competition and was presented at the festival. On the website https://www.lightnightsfest.ru online voting was held. The author of the light installation with the highest number of votes received the Audience Choice Award.

In the «Videomapping» nomination, the contestants created original audio-visual works which were shown on the Jordan facade of the Gatchina Palace.

From the out-of-competition program the fountains music show «Extravaganza» was worth mentioning particularly, especially created for the «Light Nights» by the company «ARTISTIC» from Latvia. According to the authors' conception, five musical episodes demonstrated the spectrum of emotions and impressions caused by the synchronous dance of water, light, color and music.

The Dutch artist Ralph Westerhof, participant of international light festivals in Amsterdam, Lausanne, Singapore, Jerusalem, Ghent, Ljubljana, Cascais and Toronto, presented the installation "Ab iove principium". The project was supported by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Russia.

The kinetic installation «Limb. Radiance» appealed to the phenomenon of "limit in the world cognition". Limb - "edge, limit" from Latin – is the term that came from medieval Catholic theology. Nick Hamov, an artist-technologist, the author of the installation, devoted his work to Stephen Hawking – «a man who walked beyond science. »

Guests also were impressed the collective work «Form of Water» created by the participants of the workshop under the supervision of Serafima Gavrilova. This training seminar on video mapping was conducted by SOLARIS FX with the participation and support of the New Media Laboratory of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater and the youth center «Kvadrat».

For the third year in a row, the lighting designers of IntiLED, the partner of the festival, not only helped the park transform be means of architectural lighting, but also created their own artistic works. That year, Ksenia Pilipetskaya and Ulyana Vinogradova presented the installation «EVERYTHING IS not IMPORTANT».

Fantasy street lamps made from improvised materials by participants of the Lantern Park workshops were be part of the «Light nights» exposition. The workshops were held by St. Petersburg artists Andrey Sikorsky, Vera Marinina and Dmitry Oshev. The theme of the project is «My favorite book. » The Lantern Park project is implemented with the support of the Institute of Finland in St. Petersburg and the LUX Helsinki festival.

A tinge of theatricality to the program were given by set of performances. Special thanks for the Kotorogo Theatre, Levendal Theatre, Sky Tramps Theatre, Intependent Petersburg Theatre, Theatre La Pushkine, Theatre Nessy Tahoe, Cloune Kostya Plotnikov.

Hashtag #LIGHTGATCHINA - INSTAGRAM viewer competition