Lumiere London 2018

It was a couple of year ago that I first went to Lumiere London and having enjoyed that I was glad to see it back for 2018. Lumiere is a festival where international artists are invited to create artwork that quite literally lights up public spaces and/or buildings. The event had been booked in the diary for some time and David was persuaded to act as the leader of the group meeting at 19:00  on Saturday, 20th January, with the other group lead by another at 20:00.

I was rather looking forward to this all day and a little worried that it was raining through the morning and afternoon as I wanted to get the camera out for photos. Thankfully the rain behaved itself and just before 19:00 the early Brompton crew gradually rolled in.

It seemed like an age since we had all seen each other. The last time I saw David and Anne was at their wedding in September 2017. As for Mark (King of the Hill) it was even longer. After a brief chat about the ride from David we were off in search of the first illumination.

We didn't have to travel too far and soon Westminster Abbey came into view all resplendent. Of course this meant photos of this and our respective Brompton bicycles.

Not to be outdone Westminster Cathedral had a projections of people appearing to climb up a building. All very clever.

At Westminster Cathedral itself there was what appeared to be illuminated stained glass window. It was in fact made out of bottles and powered by a line of bicycles. You could take your turn to pedal and the intensity of the lights was only matched by the effort put into pedalling. Very clever.

At one point we found ourselves cycling past Buckingham Palace down The Mall. This brought back memories of cycling behind David when lots of us did our first St Crispins Day Night Ride a few years ago.

Somewhere in Mayfair there was a series of lit up circles, from which could be heard sounds if you stood almost directly in front of it.

When we reached Regent Street it felt strange that there was no traffic - certain roads being closed for the event.

In Berkeley Square an illuminated nightingale parched in a tree. It did not sing but Frank Sinatra could be heard singing the famous song.

In one location bike lights were turned off and it was as if fireflies were darting around.

In another chimes could be hit to produce a note in time to music being played as well as lighting up.

Not far from the US Embassy a rooftop restaurant was transformed with various light exhibits, the bike being catching my eye.

Out penultimate destination was Kings Cross where there were a great many items to interest. The illuminated birdcage proving to be very popular.

Further in there was a laser show that rendered the area a little like a nightclub in Ibiza in the mid-1980's.

The giant desk lamps were excellent and it seemed everyone had the same idea of wanting to be in the spotlight.

As the lights got turned off at 22:30 David rounded out those still there to make the last stop on the Southbank. When we got there I took a photo of an arch of triangles that you could travel through. No sooner had I taken this photo the lights went out! It was 22:30 and David had managed to get us there...just.

I really enjoyed the night and it was lovely to catch up with some of the old crowd as well as meeting some new faces too. Although saying that so many photos were being taken and video shot that talk was minimal from all.

Many thanks to David for leading us and it was a little like old times in many ways.

If you haven't already seen it, I managed to make a short video that sums up much of the above and allows you to see what we saw. Link for that below.

Link to post with video