Nobel Week Lights 2025, Sweden

Nobel Week Lights 2025 (NWL) showcased 19 light installations inspired by Nobel Prize awarded scientific discoveries, literature and peace-work. Light art has the ability to be artistically ambitious and to resonate universally- a combination that inspires wonder while fostering local pride, curiosity, and collective ownership of the urban environment.  Building on this, the 2025 festival presented diverse mediums within light art as well as included perspectives of 35 artists from 9 different countries. Working closely with local artistic and design communities, over 52% of the light art installations presented in the program were created by Sweden-based artists, students and participants.

Light installations in the 2025 edition evoked the urgency of Peacework in our current geo-political climate. Charlotte Landelius’ artwork ‘In a Heartbeat’ integrated voices of International Red Cross Volunteers answering an achingly simple question – ‘Why do you care?’. Installations by Yann Nguema and Les Ateliers BK created space for audiences to consider individuals and organisations working for human rights and unification on a global scale. Light art works also sparked curiosity about scientific phenomena, from Ottomata’s invitation for the audience to create gravitational waves, to Those Guys Lighting and Janis Pettersons’ homages to astrophysics.

After five years of focusing on large-scale shared light experience in central Stockholm, the festival was invited to reimagine its future and Tensta, a suburb 20 minutes outside the center, offered a unique and vital context. Tensta is shaped by strong and diverse communities and responding to this rich context, the program was curated with a collaborative approach. Rather than delivering art from the outside, the installations and events in Tensta were co-created with local stakeholders through dialogue and workshops. 50% of the artworks directly involved locals ranging from preschool children, to sewing groups, lego clubs, writing circles, youth tech hubs and elderly communities.

Presenting NWL in two complementary zones enabled the festival to reach broader audiences, deepen connections, and affirm that high-quality light art belongs in every part of the city.

NWL can be the first introduction for audiences to light art and lighting design in public space, and as such, the festival prioritizes opening doors: working with audience development, pedagogy and the creation of a ‘personalized-invitation’. NWL creates this by facilitating a range of entry points for audiences. A 78 meter long artwork in Stockholm’s power center was designed and created by two school classes. 62 free guided tours were offered in 9 languages (Swedish Sign-language, Arabic, English, Finnish, French, Somali, panish, Swedish, Tigrinya ) and over 39 outreach activities were designed to attract a range of interests and communities into the two festival zones. The artistic program and activities welcomed over 1.7 million visitors to the 2025 festival.

Acknowledgments:

Nobel Week Lights is created by Troika Art: Annika Levin, Alexandra Manson and Lara Szabo Greisman. 2025 Operations team: Hans Davis, Kristina Johansen Seznec, Elise Cervin, Nils Blomberg, Sanja Vollsaeter and Yanina Casanova.  Advisors and Heroes: Andreas Jakobsson (Stockholm City Event Department), Anders Hedlund and Nicklas Centring (Traffikontoret), Johan Petterson (Nightline) and Alexa Morun (Security).