A breathtaking free arts festival will soon be taking over Toronto's Trillium Park, bringing life — and light — back to Ontario Place.

Returning for its 6th year, the annual Lumiere Festival is gearing up for their brightest year yet, decorating Trillium Park with 14 original works by Ontario-based artists and designers.

While news surrounding Ontario Place and Trillium Park is all too frequently disappointing, given the provincial government's plans to redevelop the public space into a luxury spa with an enormous parking lot, Lumiere marks a rare bit of positivity surrounding the waterfront property.

Running from March 10 to April 4, you'll be able to explore over a dozen inventive, illumuminated works, ranging from illustrations to sculptures, and more than a few interactive works that defy categorization.

 

 

 

 

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Take, for example, Intangible Light by Anthony Headley, Ben Renzella, James Craig, where visitors can pick up a flashlight that, while emitting no light itself, will illuminate artificial flowers installed around the show when pointed at them.

Nostalgia Mechanica by the Treehouse Collective features an interactive gear-turning system that, when triggered, activates a "wave of nostalgia," comprised of colourful lights, familiar sounds and colourful elements.

The installation Deep Reverie by software engineer and design duo Bitbrainz, is described as a "visual experiment where algorithms [produce] surreal, dreamlike images," in an effort to explore the question of what AI dreams about.

All of these, plus the other 11 awe-inspiring pieces of art, have been selected around the curatorial theme of “Neon Dreams: Light and Colour," where artists were enlisted to submit works that exemplify the dynamic and playful nature of light and colour.

The festival is open from dusk (which, as of March 9, will be arriving about an hour later than it is now) to 11 p.m. nightly throughout the run, with the added benefit of cozy bonfires being lit from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Friday and Saturday.

During March Break, which runs from March 10 to 14, the fires will also be lit every night.

Trillium Park is located at 955 Lake Shore Boulevard West.