Brixen Water Light Festival 2026 puts peace at its centre
The Brixen Water Light Festival is running until 16 May in the Alpine town of Brixen, South Tyrol, with 24 light art installations from artists across 13 countries. This year's theme is "Imagine Peace." The...
The Brixen Water Light Festival is running until 16 May in the Alpine town of Brixen, South Tyrol, with 24 light art installations from artists across 13 countries. This year's theme is "Imagine Peace."
The choice feels deliberate. With war continuing in Ukraine, works throughout the festival address conflict, memory and what peace actually costs. The installations line the town's squares, historic buildings and the banks of its two mountain rivers.
Two Ukrainian artists now living in Norway perform live sand paintings inside the Church of Our Lady, a building dating to 980 AD. Their work shifts between a mother with children and a boy facing soldiers.
Croatian artist Marko Bolkovic built his piece from reused EU pallets. It carries responses from residents in Brixen, Copenhagen, Oslo, Essen and Pula on what peace means to them.
The festival runs against a backdrop of the Dolomites and closes on the UN International Day of Light.
