All are welcome to submit proposals for lighting installations in the Winter Lights open call. Information is provided below regarding this year's Winter Lights and how to submit a proposal.
Open call for Winter Lights (Vinterljus) 2025
About this year's Winter Lights
- Dates for Winter Lights: 13-30/11 2025
- Linköping is a city with a long history. The city is strongly marked by this history with its church, academy, education and development. Today, this is evident, among other things, through world-leading innovation, research, and technological development. In 2025, Linköping University will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Therefore, Winter Lights wants to acknowledge the spirit of discovery, development, and education with this year's theme. The theme this year is "Exploring".
- The “exploring” theme covers (but is not limited to) inventions and discoveries, experimenting, curiosity, knowledge, reflecting, enlightening etc.
- Winter Lights takes place in Linköping city centre. The route this year goes around Raul Wallenbergs plats, Biskopsparken, Gråbrödragatan and Rhyzeliusgården, Biblioteksparken, Domkyrkoparken, Läroverksgatan, Borggården and into Trädgårdsföreningen. Submissions are welcome to be inspired by any of these areas, but do not need to be location specific. If a special location is desired, it should be specified in the proposal.
Criteria
Winter Lights is an outdoor event, so lighting installations need to be able to withstand the Swedish autumn/winter weather conditions.
The responsibility for ensuring that a lighting installation remains in operation lies with the artist unless a prior agreement has otherwise been made. Lighting installations shall be illuminated and extinguished each day, either automatically or by the artist personally.
Winter Lights project group can be of assistance regarding the technical delivery of lighting installations if you only wish to propose artistic content; in that case, specify what is and what is not included in the proposal.
Received proposals are assessed on the basis of how well they meet criteria such as target-group matching, technical delivery, artistic height, relevance to the central theme, storytelling, sustainability, and contribution to the overall experience from a visitor's perspective.
It is permissible to submit more than one proposal.
Proposals must include:
- Sketches or pictures of the lighting installation
- Explanatory text
- Name of the lighting installation
- Information about the artist
- Price (should be a total price and include all costs, if accommodation is needed for artist that cost should be covered by the artist and included in the price)
- Whether there are any technical requirements for the lighting installation or specific requirements concerning placement of installation.
- Information relevant to the specific lighting installation from a sustainability perspective. This might include materials, shipping (in the case of journeys longer than 100 km), reuse etc.
Lighting installation proposals should be submitted to Winter Light's email address:
Process and important dates for participation
- The final date for submitting proposals is April 2 2025.
- Notification of participation will be given at the end of April 2025
- Contracts are drafted in May 2025
- Information regarding technical requirements and setup, as well as communication materials, must be submitted no later than August 1 2025.
- Lighting installations will be inspected on site on November 12 2025.
- Winter Lights opens on November 13 2025