Light art installations with curious names such as “Museum of the Moon” and “Global Rainbow” will be among the draws at the International Festival of Lights (Filux) to be held in Mérida and two other Yucatán cities in the coming weeks.
The event – which was first held in Mérida in 2017 but was absent from the cultural calendar in 2020 and 2021 – will commence in the Yucatán capital on Nov. 24 for a four-night run.
The homegrown festival will then move to Valladolid for another four nights of light art from Dec. 1 before concluding with a three-night program in Tekax, a small city in Yucatán’s southwestern corner. It is the first time that Filux will be held in those two cities.
A total of 27 luminous works will be on display in the Yucatán cities, according to the Filux website. They include “Museum of the Moon” by British artist Luke Jerram, “Global Rainbow” by U.S. artist Yvette Mattern, “Pájaro Toh” by Mexican artist Miguel Bolívar and “Intrude” by Australian artist Amanda Parer.
Festival-goers can expect to see innovative and awe-inspiring uses of light in the various works, which include light sculptures, projection mapping onto buildings and laser projections. The artworks mentioned above feature a large replica of the moon, rays of colorful light projected over a long distance, a light sculpture of the toh (or motmot) bird and a group of four brightly-lit inflatable rabbits.
Maps showing the different locations where the works will be on display in Mérida, Valladolid and Tekax are available on the Filux website. Organizers recommend that people attend the festival on two different nights to ensure they have the time to see everything.
Filux founding director David Di Bona thanked Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila for his support of the festival, which will run between 6 and 11 p.m. and is completely free.
Previous editions of Filux, including those held in Mexico City, have attracted over 5.5 million spectators, according to the festival’s Facebook page, which describes the event as the first of its kind in Latin America.
With reports from Diario de Yucatán
