Spier Light Art returns to Spier Wine Farm from 21 March to 21 April 2025, transforming the working farm into an immersive space of nocturnal adventure. With 16 site-specific art installations activating the landscape, visitors will be free to wander, discover, and immerse themselves in the play of light and the stories that each artwork tells – an embodied reminder of art’s transformative power to illuminate even the darkest corners of our world and minds.
The Spier Light Art exhibition aims to ignite fresh sparks and interchange between local and visiting artists and audiences from the continent and the world at large.
Family-friendly event
The exhibition is a family-friendly event that is free to the public. All the artworks are exhibited outside so the best time to visit is at dusk, when the sun goes down and the lights come up. Bring your family and friends for a night-time adventure of illuminating art, fresh farm air, good wine and hearty food.
Light art in context
Light art first appeared at the end of the 19th century after the discovery of electric incandescent lighting. Some standout light art works of the early 20th century include Russian avant-garde artist/designer El Lissitzky’s Proun Room (1923) and Hungarian Bauhaus Constructivist László Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator (1922–30). In his writings about the genre, Moholy-Nagy referred to it as ‘light architecture’ or ‘light plays’. In the 1960s, it became known as ‘lumino kinetic art’ and was aligned with Op Art, due to the spectacular, psychedelic aspects of moving light.
The possibilities have expanded as more artists have chosen to use light as their main medium of expression. Arising out of video art and photography, large light festivals and events have helped to develop the use of light on large canvases, such as architectural façades, building projections, the flood lighting of buildings with colour and interactive media facades. The Centre for International Light Art in Unna, Germany, is currently the world’s only museum dedicated exclusively to light art, but many contemporary art museums around the world include light sculptures and installations in their permanent and temporary collections.
Meanwhile, light art festivals and LEDs have redefined light art as a genre. Driven by outdoor urban light sculpture with low-energy LED luminaires that help to highlight ecological change, these ephemeral collective exhibition spaces date back to the Vivid Light Art Festival in Sydney in 2009 and the i Light Marina Bay Festival – Asia’s only sustainable light festival – first hosted in Singapore in 2010. Other leading light art festivals include the Signal Festival in Prague and the Ghent Light Festival in Belgium.
For site-specific participating artists and artworks see here.
Read about previous year events here and here.
What: Spier Light Art Shining Bright
When: 21 March – 21 April 2025, from 18:30
Where: Spier Wine Farm, Stellenbosch
Cost: Free entry, book on Dineplan
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