Westminster Abbey will light up the darkness this weekend as London's biggest-ever festival of light begins. Lumiere London will see the iconic architecture of Westminster Abbey, along with 30 other locations across London, transformed by technicolour light installations.
The festival, produced by Artichoke and supported by Boris Johnson, has shut down Picaddilly circus, transformed telephone boxes into fish bowls and brought to life the saints engraved on Westminster Abbey, as it displays a host of international artists and their captivating work.
The martyrs who usually stand unobtrusively above the Great West Doors of Westminster Abbey were brought to life by Patrice Warrener, who transformed them into "kaleidoscopic illuminations, a tribute to their lives in technicolour."
An icon in its own right, the red telephone box has been transformed in Mayfair into an aquarium full of exotic fish. The French duo behind the installation – Benedetto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille – "invite us to dream of travel and escape from our everyday lives."
Human figures have been illuminated against the night sky by French artist Cédric Le Borgne in his ethereal piece Voyageurs (The Travellers).
The scultpures made out of light are found frozen mid-air in flight or sitting on rooftops in the West End, "offering the possibility of connection between the sky and the ground, between dream and reality."
Slowly stomping through an archway, an elephant emerges from an archway above Regent Street. The enormous animated projection is the brainchild of Catherine Garret and a team from Top' Là Design, who specialise in urban scenography.
Lumiere London is running every evening until 17 January from 6.30-10.30pm.
