Celebrating Latvia’s birthday, everyone is invited to experience shared moments of light and positive emotions by viewing and enjoying light installations created by local and international light artists. “Staro Rīga” will take place over four days, from 15 to 18 November, every evening from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
During this time, a variety of light installations, audiovisual light objects, and video projections on building facades will shine in the streets and parks of Riga. This year’s festival main program features 52 light objects.
The theme of the “Staro Rīga 2026” light festival is “unum momentum - that one moment”. By creating their proposals for this year’s festival program and the concepts of the light route exhibitions, light artists and creative groups reflect on a significant moment that, across different forms, formats, and genres of light art, is interpreted in visual storytelling in a multimedia and interdisciplinary way. That one moment that changes the world, whether the global world or someone’s inner world. The moment when the next step is taken, when a choice is made. The moment before or after a significant event, a fleeting moment with its own imagery, feelings, and poetics. The moment that is right now, here, together, embraced by light, celebrating the shared festival of us all. The emotional direction of the festival theme is expressed by the words of Imants Ziedonis: “I am nothing if there is not in me that light that people call love.”
The main route of “Staro Rīga 2026” is centered on the Daugava River and the placement of light objects on both banks of the Daugava, forming light circles that mark the areas where objects of unified artistic exhibitions are located, creating routes for shorter or longer walks.
On the left bank of the Daugava, the festival route leads from the House of Light along Mūkusalas Promenade. On the right bank of the Daugava, the endpoints of the festival route are the Spīķeri area near the Central Market and Viesturdārzs, with the Old Town and the area from the Ave Sol concert hall to Kronvalda Park included in the expanded route, divided into several light circles. The festival route is made up of light circle exhibitions developed by seven creative groups, works created by young artists from the Art Academy of Latvia and the Latvian Culture College of the Latvian Academy of Culture, as well as individual light objects united by the festival theme and route. The total length of the light festival route is almost five kilometers.
More than two-thirds of the festival main program consists of new works by our light artists. For the first time at this festival, a light festival object called “Dižkoku balsis” will also be installed at the foot of the Freedom Monument. On 18 November, the environmental object will transform into a stage for the festive concert, whose visual structure will remain unchanged, but it will be complemented by a light performance at the end of the concert.
The program also includes international light artists. The internationally renowned Hungarian light artist László Zsolt Bordos has created a special new work for our festival - the large-scale light installation ASCEND on the facade of the House of Light, with the message “Art rises higher. Art is an illumination revealed by light.”
An interactive installation by Norwegian light artist Anastasia Isachen, which combines art and science and poses profound questions about our relationship with the environment, will be placed in Castle Square.
On the facade of the Riga Congress Centre, the Hungarian creative group Lightspray Visual (Fényszóró Visual) will create a projection using specially made, powerful analog projectors and kinetic mechanisms.
In Viesturdārzs, visitors will be able to see SOLEIL NUIT (“Sun at Night”), a kinetic sculptural artwork by French light artist Sébastien Lefevre, which contains more than 5,000 mirror elements.
The festival program also includes seven installations created by students of the Art Academy of Latvia and four light objects realized by the LCA Latvian Culture College, made in collaboration with students from the European university alliance from nine countries.
This year’s visual identity for the “Staro Rīga” light festival was developed by designer Dace Sūna, whose works explore light with attention to optical phenomena. The festival visual identity was created by photographing light experiments made in a studio, capturing in photographs real, fleeting optical phenomena produced by the refraction and reflection of light as it interacts with materials and the atmosphere.
The visual identity concept Momentum lucis, or “A Moment of Light”, echoes the theme of the “Staro Rīga” light festival, “unum momentum - that one moment”, in which light, when meeting glass, lenses, and mirror surfaces, briefly reveals itself in unexpected forms and transformations, reflecting the essence of the festival - the encounter of art, design, technology, and creativity, in which light transforms the urban environment for a few nights and becomes a shared, unique experience.
The graphic design author of the visual identity is Matīss Zvaigzne.
The full program of the “Staro Rīga” light festival is available on the website staroriga.lv .
Kronvalda parks starp Pilsētas kanālu un Kronvalda bulvāri
Šodiena is an informational event guide. Ticket purchase, registration, and event terms are provided directly on the official event or ticketing vendor website.
