No results found

Waterperry web banner2 f2suhd
What's On, Art

Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival - celebrating our communities

Community-based event takes place around the city and online

divider

Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival has traditionally been a major event drawing people into the city centre for a weekend of extraordinary activities for all. This year, from 20 - 22 November, the festival will take place in a safe, socially distanced way, both in communities and online.

The Festival launches on Friday 20 November at 4pm with the streaming of a film by regular festival artists Luxmuralis with Fusion Arts. Inspired by the collections of our leading museums, the film will be projected onto some of Oxford's iconic buildings. It can be watched on digital platforms and via the festival website from the comfort of home, marking the start of Oxford’s Light Festival 2020.

More people can take part in an updated version of the lantern parade by creating their own illuminations along with projects to design illuminated window scenes. IF Oxford, the festival of Science and Ideas and Fusion Arts, are running a series of six weekly online workshops to make programmable light displays. Further ‘create and make’ resources will be shared on the festival website and households are being encouraged to decorate their windows, doors, balconies and gardens for local light trails over the weekend. Once registered via the website, streets will feature on a map of outdoor local light trails for people to safely share in their neighbour’s creations!

Councillor Mary Clarkson, Cabinet Minister for Culture and City Centre said:

“This year’s Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival is an important opportunity for our local communities to share in a moment of uplifting creativity. The wonderful ideas and activities being offered under the festival banner mean we can all enjoy the fun and spectacle in our homes and around our local areas. Bringing the festival out into the community this way is inspiring and I hope everyone will get involved."

Other festival projects will be taking place around the city’s districts created by Oxford’s leading cultural organisations, including a roving artwork travelling around the city by bike, an illuminated collection of instruments playing tweets and a majestic stained glass window offering messages of hope. As well as the ‘make and create’ activities there will be live streamed work including a collection of dance performances by 28 groups from Oxford and twinned cities Ramallah, Perm and Grenoble. Many organisations will be working with community groups in specially adapted workshops and offering online activities.

There will be three strands of activities that families and individuals around the city can get directly involved with: Make an illumination; Local Light Trails; Doorstep Celebration.

Encouraging as much public involvement as possible there are ideas to inspire, based on thoughts that have very much been with us over the past months: The light that moves us forward; Build back better; Green recovery; My community; Real-life heroes; Being thankful.

The festival website will be a hub of information showing how to get involved locally and includes resources, how-to videos, galleries of images showing what people have made and details of what’s happening in local communities.

The festival has spread over the whole city with opportunities for everyone to get involved. To find out all the details visit oxlightfest.com

All images Courtesy of Jeff Slade.

RECOMMENDED

Screenshot 2024 12 03 at 11.41.32
Tue 3 Dec 2024

BBOWT

Festive Challenge

12 Days Wild is the festive challenge by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), which takes place from 25 December to 5 January. The idea is to do one wild thing

RS820996 6466 2200 hpr guajiy
Thu 28 Nov 2024

Inspiring Minds Since 1683

The Ashmolean Museum

Based in the heart of Oxford, and Britain’s first public museum, the Ashmolean Museum has been inspiring minds since 1683. Free to all and open every day, the Ashmolean offers something

The Shark is Broken
Wed 27 Nov 2024

Oxford Playhouse

Spring 2025

Get ready for a spring bursting with inspirational performance and great entertainment at Oxford Playhouse!

p.209 Fran%C3%A7ois Halard from Modern Artisan Flammarion mgmf4l
Thu 24 Oct 2024

Modern Artisan

A World of Craft Tradition and Innovation

Artisanal crafts are having a renaissance thanks to our growing preferences for fair-trade practices, an urgent call to protect the planet, and a renewed respect for the quality and durability of handmade objects.