One day before arriving in the Netherlands, I discovered on the Internet that Amsterdam holds a Light Festival every year, during winter, featuring some contemporary national and international, young and older, light artists. This year, the festival was dedicated to the theme “Friendship” and occurred from 28 November 2015 until 17 January 2016. Luckily, I managed to visit it on the last night.
The Festival consisted of two main routes:
- Water Colors – By purchasing a cruise ticket, you could get an unique view of the city, through the famous water canals and see the artistic installations one by one as you went through the itinerary.
- Illuminade – If you prefered, you could go through the walking route, wandering around the beautiful and rich neighborhoods.
I chose the Water Colors route, but on foot, as I could stare at the lights for as long as I wanted and just enjoy rambling in the beautiful A’dam. Also, I really wanted to photograph the ones I most enjoyed, so I needed to be at a still place to get sharper shots.
“Run Beyond”
“Freedom as a valuable friend”
“Today I Love You”
This one had a really pretty and meaningful message. I read about it on the information board next to it:
“Today I Love You. A sentence excelling at splendid simplicity. A magical sentence, which seems to come from a beautiful dream you don’t yet want to wake up from. But also a sentence that evokes questions. What about tomorrow? Next year? Will you still love me then? Is this love eternal, or will it slip away in time and do we have to content ourselves with the moment? The Italian artist Massimo Uberti, renowned for his poetic light installations, has written the sentence in light, opening a new perspective:suddenly the words have become matter. The message – today I love you – has been fixed in time, making it possible for you to enjoy the comforting words over and over again. And that’s exactly what Uberti has in mind: ‘It’s a friendly greeting, written in light. It’s a sentence which I hope will be uttered by everybody every day.’ The artist hopes that it’s a work visitors will fall in love with and will want to revisit over and over again in order to get charged up and be able to resume their daily activities with renewed energy. Like a dream, but one you can get in and out of, even when awake. Today I love you. As I will tomorrow.”
For me, this was a magical night in Amsterdam. It truly deserves to be called the Venice of the North. It seems like each time I visit this city I fall deeper in love with this place. Today I love you, Amsterdam. ❤
If you are interested in knowing more about this Festival and about other artistic installations presented, click here.
All I Breathe 