Lumière brings art to the streets, sidewalks, shop fronts, and public spaces of downtown Sydney. Each year, the festival presents fresh, contemporary art projects from local and national artists that transform Sydney’s civic spaces. In 2013, the event won Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce’s People’s Choice Award for Favourite Outdoor Experience in the CBRM.
“We’re very excited about this year’s festival,” says Chair of the Lumière board, Laura Schneider. “The volunteer board of directors work year-round to organize the festival and it has been a great planning year. We have some exciting new programming built into the festival, including artist talks and workshops on the days leading up to the art-at-night event.”
This year’s art-at-night event will include over 35 projects. While the majority of artists in the festival are from Cape Breton, other participating artists hail from Halifax, Cornerbrook, Regina, Vancouver, and Charlottetown.
Schneider notes that this year, Lumière is participating in a project exchange with Art in the Open, Charlottetown, PEI’s art-at-night event, which took place August 23, 2014. “We’ve partnered with Art in the Open to test run a project exchange, which means we sent two projects by Cape Breton artists to Art in the Open, and we will be showcasing two PEI artists at Lumière on September 27th.”
Schneider says the exchange gives Cape Breton artists an important exhibition and networking opportunity, and allows local audiences to see some of the most successful projects from festivals elsewhere. “We’d like to see a nation-wide project exchange in the coming years.”
Lumière is family friendly, accessible and free to the public. Programs and schedules will be available on the website, and will be handed out at the event.
