The festive season is but a distant memory, the days are long, dark and wet, and many have been met with the sad news of the Thin White Duke returning to the stars. You’d be forgiven for feeling a little blue. But take heart, Lumiere London is here to help brighten your mood. Running from 14th – 17th January (6.30 – 10.30pm each evening) this free festival of light will put some of the city’s most iconic areas and buildings in the spotlight. The brainchild of creative company Artichoke, Lumiere London includes 30 international commissions intent on breaking through the wintery clouds.

Attracting attention in a city already awash with 'bright lights' may appear daunting but Artichoke have great previous form. In 2006 they produced the extraordinary and, without hyperbole, utterly delightful Sultan’s Elephant by Royal de Luxe, which brought central London to a standstill. It was then the company realised the power of events on such a scale as Artichoke Artistic Director, Helen Marriage explains: “it was with that event that we realised the incredible effect of bringing large numbers of people together to experience a live performance or installations can have on the life of a city.”

Since its beginnings in Durham in 2009 the festival has run to critical and public acclaim, when it first drew crowds of over 70,000. Marriage is excited to bring the festival to London, particularly in what is statistically the most depressing week of the year. “We chose the week deliberately – keeping our fingers crossed for good weather!” she says. “We’ve noticed that the effect of our events is to spread delight as people experience their city in a totally new way.”

Although Marriage shies away from picking her own favourites (“Really impossible to say – it would be like choosing between your children”) these programme picks have brought a particular sparkle to Run Riot’s eye: Catherine Garret and Top'là Design’s regal Elephantastic, an enormous animated projection of an elephant making his heavy journey through the archways of Regent Street; at next door, Piccadilly magical fire lantern creatures ebb and flow against the night sky in Porté par le vent’s delicately illuminating Les Luminéoles; Deepa Mann-Kler’s gaggle of Neon Dogs gather at Trafalgar Square, their pop art aesthetic reminiscent of children’s balloon animals; while Groupe LAPS’s LED Keyframes stickmen invite you to join them for a dance at Liberty House; and A Circus of Light by Ocubu sees local residents and passers-by become part of an animated circus of light projected across the breadth of the Granary Building in King’s Cross (where also at the Pond Club Ron Haselde’s light sculpture Diver is making a splash). If all of that seems too much for you, you can take a moment to sit and ponder the wonder on Bernd Spiecker’s witty, and comfy, Lightbenches in Mayfair.

"Lots of people think the arts is not a thing for them – but when they encounter artwork on the scale that Lumiere London offers, I think they’ll change their minds," Marriage says. We spoke to her about the inspirations for this epic festival of light as well as the grounded practicalities of getting it alight.

Honour Bayes: It’s a glorious idea to have a festival of light in the darkest time of the year. The first festival was in Durham in 2009 - how did it flicker into life?

Helen Marriage: Artichoke went up to Durham at the invitation of a local producer and fell in love with the place. The way in which the ancient architecture meets the contemporary life of the city, all ringed around by the River Wear – it’s an extraordinary place and the people were really welcoming from the very start. So in 2009 we programmed our first festival – about 22 individual installations and saw an audience of about 75,000 over the four days of the event.  Given that Durham is a tiny city of about 40,000 people, it was really astonishing to see that number of people on the streets. Our partners, Durham County Council, immediately saw the impact of the event and the benefits to the wider community and invited us back for 2011. We’ve been there ever since, every two years, with a freshly curated programme that aims temporarily to transform the architecture and the experience of sharing the city’s public spaces.

Honour Bayes: What were your criteria for programming Lumiere London?

Helen: We’ve tried to bring together some of the most exciting artists working in the medium of light to showcase their work to the London audience. There are festivals of light that happen across the globe – but this is the first major event to be held in central London and we wanted to reveal the best of what’s been seen in the rest of the world to residents and visitors alike. We always programme with the architectural or social landscape in mind – trying to curate a programme where each individual artwork has something to say about its immediate context. The artists come on site-visits a long way before the festival takes place and we have careful discussions with them about what they want to do and how to achieve it technically and artistically

Honour Bayes: With artists from around the world and at numerous locations across London, Lumiere London is epic. How would you recommend people to best navigate the programme over the four days?

Helen: The programme is essentially divided into four areas: Mayfair; Piccadilly/Regent St; Trafalgar Square/Westminster/the Mall and King’s Cross. Each of these areas is suitable for people to walk around – and some are adjacent, so audience members can easily walk between them. It might be difficult to see all that Lumiere London offers in one evening, so people who love what they see might want to explore further afield on another night. At King’s Cross, for example, there are opportunities to linger in the public realm, soaking up the atmosphere. There’ll be street food and other entertainments as well as the installations that Lumiere London is creating.

Honour Bayes: London is a city awash with street lights, office lights, car lights, how will the light of Lumiere London pierce this white wash? What effect will it have on people that is different from the glare of the capital?

Helen: This is an opportunity for some of the standard street lighting to be extinguished so that people have the chance to see their city in an entirely new light. The installations themselves are truly spectacular and will illuminate aspects of the built environment that generally go unnoticed. The festival encourages people to explore areas that they may not have been drawn to in the past.

Honour Bayes: What do you hope Lumiere London will illuminate for the people and city of London?

Helen: Lumiere London is all about the shared experience. Artichoke believes that the arts don’t necessarily have to take place behind the closed doors of the gallery, the concert hall or the opera house. We love creating opportunities for audiences to come out and explore familiar places in an unfamiliar way with artists and their imaginations at the heart of our programmes.

Lumiere London
6.30–10.30pm, 14th – 17th January
at King's Cross; Mayfair; Piccadilly, Regent Street and St James's; and Trafalgar Square and Westminster.
lumiere-festival.com