Created in 2012, the Llum BCN will be back on the streets of Barcelona on 5, 6 and 7 November 2021. Originally scheduled for February this year, the festival of lights has had to be moved to November, to the delight of end-of-year visitors. Poblenou, as it has been since the 2018 edition, has been chosen to host one of the most anticipated events in the city’s cultural calendar.

Llum BCN is a large-scale light show featuring international artists. For three nights, the festival will bring together these creative explorers from different disciplines: art, lighting design and interactive environments, architecture, extended audiovisual and performing arts. Attending this festival will of course give you the opportunity to fill your eyes with stars, but also to ask yourself questions, since its aim is also to challenge our preconceived visions of what urban space can be and to create new models of participation and coexistence in public space. During three nights, the public can also discover a new neighbourhood, as in many cases the doors of restricted spaces are opened for the first time. It is a unique event for its artistic singularity, like the great European festivals of light.

In previous editions, Llum BCN has welcomed leading creators such as Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, United Visual Artists, Luke Jerram, Julio Le Parc, Daniel Canogar and others. Like this year’s participants, they are part of the official programme with Barcelona’s design, architecture, art and lighting schools, in a coexistence between leading artists and works from the academy, a distinctive element of the Llum BCN model.

This year there are 31 proposals from 14 different artists, three of them international. Among the places or spaces where you can enjoy a show of light, music and colour are the Plaça de les Glòries, Les Encants, the façade of Disseny Hub Barcelona, the Pompeu Fabra University, Jardí del Sol, the Plaça de les Glòries…

This year the festival pays tribute to the figure of the artist Eugenia Balcells. She will present two installations as part of “Light as the voice of matter”: the projection of the work Frequencies on the façade of the Museu del Disseny will show the chemical symbols of each element, and the work “From infrared to ultraviolet”, which will illuminate the neighbouring Glòries building and show the horizons of colour on an urban scale.

You will also be able to see the work of Jordi Mitjà, which is based on a ban: “Don’t look”, which is what his father used to say to him when he was welding, and he has taken this name to search for options and observations that allow us to get as close as possible to the light and, in the room, it is resolved by three video projections. You can wander around the visual and sound installation and get closer to the projected images in the Hangar space, Centro de Producción e Investigación de Artes Visuales (Carrer d’Emília Coranty, 8-16).

There is also a gastronomic area run by Van Van Llum where all festival visitors can enjoy a meeting and resting point where you can taste different hot dishes from the now famous food trucks parked in the area.

How to book?

This edition of Llum BCN has limited spaces. The festival is free, but it is advisable to book in advance to reduce queues and to be able to plan the visit, choose the times and improve the quality of the experience.