LUMO, a light festival in Oulu, Finland, brightens winter darkness with art and community. Rooted in combating social isolation, it fosters mental health and togetherness. The 2024 edition featured 15 works, including “Dialogue” and “Divine Geometry,” inspiring joy and collaboration.
It’s -10° C, and the sun is shining for barely four hours a day in winter Oulu, a 200,000 people city in the north of Finland, just below Lapland and the Arctic circle, and yet, as everyone keeps repeating with a huge smile under scarfs and hats: “thankfully it’s not that cold yet”. And in fact, during the weekend, hundreds of people, mostly families, get out, despite the cold and the dark, to walk around the city, and with a good excuse too: to enjoy LUMO light festival. At its 12th edition, LUMO attracts roughly 100,000 visitors each year. Yet, as Jarkko Halunen, Head of Events at the City of Oulu explains, with LUMO, “the number of attendants is not the most important thing“.
HOW FINLAND FIGHTS SOCIAL ISOLATION WITH ART AND COMMUNITY
The festival was created with a different idea in mind. It is of course about art and new media, but the main focus is, and has always been, mental health and social isolation. Finland, today known as one of the happiest countries in the world, has a long, and pretty dark history with depression and suicides. In the 1990s, record years for suicides in the country, more than 1,500 people took their own lives. Since then, however, the country has been and continues working tirelessly to improve social cohesion as part of the fight against loneliness and depression. Art and public programs are a huge part of this too.
LUMO: BRINGING LIGHT AND JOY TO THE DARKEST TIME OF THE YEAR
LUMO goes in the same direction: “The idea has been from the start that this is the darkest time of the year“, explains Jarkko Halunen, Head of Events for the City of Oulu, “usually it’s quite slushy, there is not necessarily even snow, so it’s really quite dark. People tend to spend most of their time at home, except from going to work and buying food, mostly watching TV and getting depressed”. In this context, “the festival really comes from the need of people to have something joyful to come together and speak to other people“.
FROM THE COMMUNITY, FOR THE COMMUNITY: LUMO’S COLLABORATIVE SPIRIT
Here is where light comes in, to bring people together: “a way to celebrate light in the darkest time, through art“. The festival lasts two days, but the event is just the tip of the iceberg: “the aim we have been working towards is bringing the community together to collaborate, and not just brining contents to the people – we try to have the whole of Oulu, from people to local companies, to collaborate with the organization – we try to make everyone come together and make an effort to make the city more livable“. From the community for the community.
HIGHLIGHTS OF LUMO 2024: DIALOGUE AND DIVINE GEOMETRY
A good example, featured in this year’s festival, is The Mosaic, a collaborative artwork created in a workshop by the 5th–9th grade visual art classes at a local school thanks to Finnish media artist and art educator Niko Tiainen. As part of the project, during the year, children and teenagers also learned the basics of artificial intelligence and how to use digital technology and artificial intelligence for creativity.
In total, the 2024 edition featured 15 different artists. The main team, conveyed by the main artwork by Niko Tiainen, was Dialogue, projected on the Municipality building. Divine Geometry by Latvian duo Those Guys Lighting, about unity, connection, and the infinite nature of the universe, was one of the key works. A huge circle on the snow, with light dancing towards the audience, becoming at once material and elusive. The experience was made even more meditative by the soundscapes created by sound engineer Pēteris Pāss.
MAGICAL PROJECTIONS: AMNESIA AND THE POWER OF MEMORY AT LUMO
AMNESIA by Cristian Rizzuti and Julian Alvarez is a generative laser projection on a circular chemical paint canvas, reacting to the laser to create shapes. The work is a discourse about memory, its loss and what remains. The effect, with trees in the background barely visible in the dark, is pure magic, recalling fantastic imageries.
The budget, around 200,000 euros per year is “not a lot for a light festival”, which led the organization to reduce the event from ten to two days, “to increase the feeling of coming together, make it feel more like a festival“.
CULTURAL CLIMATE CHANGE: OULU’S JOURNEY TO 2026 CULTURE CAPITAL
Stalls by local businesses are present around the route. “It took a long way to get people to believe in the project and trust that there will be a benefit to get involved“. Recently, Oulu has been busy looking forward, as it won the bid to become European Culture Capital for 2026. “Being a culture capital“, explains Samu Forsblom, program director, “used to be a matter of historical and cultural heritage, now it is more about the way forward, the project and the directions a city is willing to take“. The theme chosen by Oulu, Cultural climate change, is quite fitting. Famous as the Nokia headquarter, Oulu is reimagining its heritage to change its future into a hub for technology and the arts. LUMO will be at the heart of the 2025 program: “the main thing” comments Jarkko Halunen, “is that we can develop the festival artistically ang get more and more artists to collaborate, more involvement from the community, Oulu26 will give us an opportunity to get this further“.l
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