Magic carpets and glowing heartbeats at this year’s Nobel Week Lights festival

“It is wonderful that we can once again offer everyone who lives in and visits Stockholm the opportunity to join us in celebrating this year’s Nobel Prize laureates,” says Erika Lanner, Director of the Nobel Prize Museum. “The light festival is a fantastic opportunity to illuminate science and culture during the period when Stockholm is at its darkest. I encourage everyone to take a December stroll and experience the Nobel Week Lights.”

Two of the works are inspired by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates, who will be honoured during the Nobel Week in Stockholm. At Strömparterren, a small waterside park below the Swedish Parliament, you will find three large light globes created by Canadian artists Lucion Média. Inside these colourful orbs, a dancing shadow play will be visible, the story it tells is inspired by the dramas and prose works of this year’s literature laureate Jon Fosse. The three 2023 physics laureates − Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier − have sparked the imagination of students at Beckmans College of Design, who are creating an installation with attoseconds in mind.

This year the light festival has attracted one of the world’s most prominent light artists. Miguel Chevalier is one of the pioneers of virtual and digital art and his works have been shown all over the world in places such as New York, Singapore, Morocco and Brazil. His work at the Stockholm City Museum, ‘Magic Carpets’ consists of interactive projections that transform as the visitor walks through them. The imagery of these projections is inspired by images and symbols found in science.

The work that will be on display at the City Hall will draw attention to Stockholm’s history and art history, as well as the City Hall’s strong connection to the Nobel Prize festivities. The magnificent play of light on the façade is also a tribute to the Stockholm City Hall building itself, which this year celebrates its centenary. Among other things, you will be able to see how the City Hall was built − brick by brick.

One of the artistic light installations will link football to physics. Niels Bohr’s model of the atom made its breakthrough in the scientific world during the early 20th century. Bohr was the first to explain how atoms were structured. In the artwork “Kick it”, visitors themselves can initiate a reaction where light jumps from ball to ball. The orbs of light move, like an image of how electrons revolve around the nucleus of an atom. Niels Bohr was also a passionate football player and goalkeeper for his home team in Copenhagen. In 1922 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

At Benny Fredrikssons Torg (a street behind Kulturhuset), lighting designer Irina My Ahrenstedt has collaborated with an elementary school in Stockholm’s Södermalm district. Nearly a hundred ten-year-olds have created kaleidoscopes that will be projected onto one of the building walls. This artwork was inspired by a Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, Ragnar Granit (1967), who researched how the eye perceives colours, and by physics laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1930), who studied the diffraction of light according to the so-called Raman effect.

The Stockholm Cathedral will display an artwork inspired by literature laureate Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry collection “The Sorrow Gondola”. Designer and light artist Ivan Wahren will let a green-blue shimmering light meander down the high tower of the cathedral.

Sixty guided tours in six languages will be offered during the light festival.

Locations with artistic light installations: Benny Fredrikssons torg, the Centralbron bridge, the Grand Hôtel, Gustav Adolfs torg (the square in front of the Royal Opera), Charles XII Square (a park behind the Opera), the Nobel Prize Museum, Sergels torg (a central square), the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts, Skeppsholmen (an island near the city centre), Soltorget (a square above Sergels torg), the City Hall, the City Museum, Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral), Strömparterren and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.

Participating artists and lighting designers: Atelier BK, Chevalvert, Irina My Ahrenstedt, Ivan Wahren, Juan Funentes, Light Spray, Limelight, Lucion Média, Miguel Chevalier, Rethread, Studio Toer, Theaterpixels and Valentine Isaeus-Berlin as well as several universities and colleges.

The full programme can be found at: https://nobelweeklights.se/?lang=en

Press contact:
Nobel Prize Museum, press@nobelprize.org

Contact for Nobel Week Lights:
Lara Szabo Greisman, Executive Producer
lara@nobelweeklights.se, +46 762 44 90 40

About Nobel Week Lights

Nobel Week Lights was initiated and produced by Annika Levin, Alexandra Manson, Lara Szabo Greisman and Troika AB. The event is part of the Nobel Week programme and is being implemented by the Nobel Prize Museum with support from the City of Stockholm, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Fagerhult, FAM, Grand Hôtel Stockholm and Einar Mattsson AB as well as several other partners. Employing artistic light installations, Nobel Week Lights is a tribute to the Nobel Prize laureates and their contributions to the greatest benefit to humankind.

Nobel Prize Museum

The Nobel Prize shows that ideas can change the world. The courage, creativity and perseverance of the Nobel Laureates inspire us and give us hope for the future. Films, in-depth tours, and artefacts tell the stories of the Laureates and their contributions ‘for the greatest benefit to humankind’. Based on the Nobel Prize’s unique combination of fields – natural sciences, literature and peace – we examine the greatest challenges of our time and show how we can respond to them through science, humanism and collaboration. With our exhibitions, school programmes, lectures and conversations, we at the Nobel Prize Museum strive to engage the public in making a better world. Today we are located at Stortorget in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s Old Town district. We are planning to create a new home for our public outreach activities at Slussen in downtown Stockholm.

Disclaimer: Nobel Prize Museum is not directly or indirectly involved in the process of nominating or selecting Nobel Prize laureates. These procedures are strictly confidential and regulated by the Nobel Prize awarding institutions.

© Nobel Prize Museum 2023. Nobelpriset®, Nobel Prize® and the Nobel Prize medal are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation.