El Poblenou lights up again with an edition of Llum BCN that reaches the beach

The city will light up at night this weekend in a new edition of Llum BCN. The Torre Glòries, the Disseny Hub (DHUB), the Casino de l'Aliança, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) campus, the Centre park, the Autocars Calella garages, the Ideal Digital Arts Center, the Can Framis Museum, the old Can Ricart factory, and Mar Bella beach will be some of the locations chosen by the light festival. From Friday night until Sunday night, Barcelona residents will be able to rediscover these spaces under an artistic and experimental gaze, which speculates on the possible forms a city can take.

Still in a pandemic context, this cultural event has opted to expand throughout Poblenou with the aim of avoiding crowds, moving away from the concentration that has characterized it in previous years, explains curator Maria Güell Ordis, with a total of 31 installations spread throughout the neighborhood. In this way, it extends to the Rambla del Poblenou and the beach, incorporating new locations that allow it to mix with new materials and scenarios.

The clearest example is the installation by Madrid artist Pablo Valbuena, who will use light to turn Mar Bella beach into an ocean wave driven by the wind. The work consists of 25 LED pillars, arranged in a large grid formation, and will take advantage of the surrounding space, integrating with the sound of the sea, wind, and sand.

Another space incorporated this year into Llum BCN will be the industrial complex of Can Ricart. Eduard Callís, Guillem Moliner, Clàudia Calvet, and Xevi Rodeja will transform one of its ruined buildings into a living room, with a large light crowning it. 150 light bulbs accompanied by cables will generate this effect, which will measure eight meters high and eight meters in diameter. The list of new locations is completed by Hangar, Ca l'Alier, the Casino de l'Aliança del Poblenou, Nau Revolution, Utopia 126, and the Autocars Calella premises.

As it could not be otherwise, this cultural event will once again reinterpret two icons of Poblenou: the Torre Glòries and the DHUB. Barcelona artist Eugènia Balcells will illuminate their facades, the only artistic installations that will be visible from the street in this edition, along with that of the beach. In the Torre Glòries, Balcells will draw a journey through color, while in the Disseny Hub she will project a dance of light.

Pre-booking available

Llum BCN was one of the last events to be saved from cancellation last year. In mid-February 2020, the light festival filled the Poblenou neighborhood with some sixty artistic installations, visited by 200,000 people. But, a year later, the event could not maintain its traditional celebration during the month of February due to the wave that came after the Christmas holidays. The organizers decided to postpone it until autumn, hoping that the situation would be more controlled by then.

The city will recover Llum BCN this weekend, but it will do so with the planning that was made during the month of February before delaying it, with a higher level of restrictions than the current one. Therefore, free tickets can be pre-booked to access the illuminated spaces, which will have limited capacity. Entry will also be possible without a reservation, as long as the maximum capacity has not been exceeded.

The ISE fair joins the celebration

Integrated Systems Events (ISE), the world's largest audiovisual congress, will begin collaborating with Llum BCN in this edition. It will be one of the members of the jury that recognizes the creations of students from art, design, lighting, and architecture schools participating in the festival, according to its curator. In this edition, all will be concentrated in the Parc del Centre del Poblenou.

Participating in events like Llum BCN allows ISE to bring the applications it shows to professionals attending the fair closer to the host city, as explained by its executive director, Mike Blackman, in an interview with The New Barcelona Post. This is the same as what the Mobile World Congress (MWC) does through the Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital). Just as the light festival hopes for February 2022 to return to its usual format, so does ISE, eager for its grand premiere in the Catalan capital, after moving from Amsterdam.