FESTIVALS

Urbane Künste Ruhr is a decentralised institution for contemporary art in the Ruhr region. Working with artists, networks and cultural institutions, it takes the region’s distinctive urban landscape as a point of departure for projects that reconsider art in public space. Under the artistic direction of Katja Aßmann, Urban Lights Ruhr invited international artists to explore artificial light as a medium for engaging with the urban and social fabric of the Ruhr.

The 2014 edition took place in Hamm, where light art has a long-standing presence through the European light-art network HELLWEG – ein LICHTWEG. Five international artists and collectives—LAb[au], plastique fantastique, Sans façon, RaumZeitPiraten and Jun Yang—created installations across the city centre. LAb[au] presented binary Waves along the Datteln-Hamm Canal, transforming environmental data into light, sound and movement.