This year's light trail illuminates questions and places in the shadows

Now the route of the light trail has been fixed for this year's Lights in Alingsås festival. The light trail takes visitors through the town, where seven urban locations including bridges, tunnels and a graveyard, along with a residential area and a park, provide inspiration for innovative and exciting light installations by this year's eight international lighting designers.

     - We hope that visitors will look at the illuminated areas in Alingsås in a new way, leading them to discover forgotten places they may previously have walked past without thinking about, says Angelica Larsson, Event Manager.

This year's theme is The Enlightenment which is based on the UN's 17 global sustainable development goals, which in turn leaves their mark on the light trail.

     - This year we hope that the light trail will fire interest in sustainability issues, which are so important to highlight. These questions are easily forgotten, just like certain places. We hope that visitors will realise that sustainability is about so much more than just the environment, says Margaretha Stenmark Workshop Manager. No efforts which work towards a better world are too small, she concludes.

New routes

This year the Lights in Alingsås festival is being held for the seventeenth year in a row and it is a challenge to find new routes for the popular light trail, which draws in the region of 90,000 visitors a year.

     - The walk will take visitors between roughly 45 minutes and one hour, and begin and end in the centre of the town. Now w’re returning to locations and paths we’ve illuminated in previous years. It's interesting to compare the past and present, says Kjell Hult, Development Manager at Alingsås municipality.

     - Usually it's difficult to make something special out of everyday environments. I'm most excited about what we're going to find at Nyebrogatan. It's a place that many people pass every day, but without thinking about it or its surroundings, adds Kjell Hult.

The light trail will start at Estrad conference and events centre in Alingsås. After this (see attached map for details) the walk continues past Christinae Church, goes into Plantaget park and crosses the bridge over Säveån, and continues along Sidenvägen, where installation number 3 can be found. It then turns back towards the town centre along Kyrkstigen at Nyebro, continues down towards Brunnsparken, continues through Nygrens passage and ends up in the Stork shopping centre, where Children's Lights is located this year.

     - At this very moment we’re planning one of many additional installations. In Plantaget park visitors will find examples of solar powered light installations, says Angelica Larsson, Event Manager.

This year's head designers were in Alingsås for a weekend in February where they went around the town with the team, looking for suitable places to build their theme-based installations. Exactly what the light installations will look like is not finally decided until one week before the event starts, when designers and students work together in a week-long workshop to construct the installations.

As there are a limited number of locations, designers and sustainable development goals - which light installation can you simply not miss?

     - If I had to choose only one, the designer Sabine De Schutter is interpreting Gender Equality and I think it will be exciting to see that goal interpreted in the form of a light installation, says Angelica Larsson, Event Manager. But of course all the installations offer different worth-while experiences, and provide food for thought, she concludes.

Lights in Alingsås will run from 30 September to 6 November, 2016

More about the UN's 17 sustainable development goals

At the UN summit on 25 September 2015, global heads of state and governments adopted 17 sustainable development goals for the period 2016 to 2030. The goals will require major changes if they are to be achieved, something that will affect communication at all levels: global and national, political and public, in organizations and in companies. Read more about the goals and the work behind them: http://www.fn.se/fn-info/vad-gor-fn/utveckling/agenda2030/.

More about Lights in Alingsås: Lightsinalingsas.se

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Contact:

Margaretha Stenmark, Workshop Manager　

Tel: +46 (0)322 61 76 78

margaretha.s@alingsasenergi.se

Angelica Larsson, Event Manager

Tel: +46 (0)70 780 08 54

angelica.larsson@estradalingsas.se