Every fall, Morningside Lights illuminates the night with a procession of awe-inspiring handmade lanterns. This year’s event, titled "In Retrospect: 100 Years of New York Art" celebrates how our city's art has shaped our image of where and how we live. Just after dusk on Saturday, September 21, see more than 50 community-built lanterns depicting a century of art.
This mobile, glowing art gallery will represent transformative art and artists, seeking to remind viewers how myriad ways of seeing can cohabit and enrich one singular space.
The procession will head from Morningside Park to Columbia University campus, fittingly home to incredible art and arts programming. The route begins in Morningside Park at 116th Street and Morningside Avenue at 8pm, arriving on campus around 8:45pm.
"This is such a rich and vibrant source of inspiration and I am eager to see the results. It is going to be spectacular," Melissa Smey, executive director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre, said in a press release.
Morningside Lights is led by the directors of Processional Arts Workshop, Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles, and produced by Columbia University's Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts.
It’s free to attend with no tickets required; festivities begin at 8pm on September 21 in Morningside Heights.
In the week leading up to the procession, all are invited to attend free community arts workshops to create the lanterns. Daily lantern-building workshops will run from September 14-20 at Miller Theatre at Columbia University. Here's more about how to get involved.