THE BEST ART LIGHTS ON PEACE

STORY
The historic Alpine town of Brixen — also known as Bressanone — is once again illuminating one of Europe’s most evocative light festivals with the best artist.

This year’s major theme title is “Imagine Peace,” due to the wars going on – especially the war in Ukraine, which has now been going on for more than four and a half years.

The Brixen Water Light Festival 2026 promotes peace via immersive 24 light art installations by artist from 13 countries on squares, buildings and along the mountain rivers Eisack and  Rienz rivers passing.

Creative Director Werner Zanotti says the festival invites visitors to reflect on peace.

Artists working directly with the theme “Imagine Peace” is Danish lightartist Eva Esmann Behrens. Her work “Walking Towards Peace” shows – among symbols – big footsteps ascend toward the sky, symbolizing “the trace we leave behind, but we also create a new future”, says Eva Esmann Behrens. transforms the city’s historic White Tower. 

The piece is inspired by conversations with local residents in Brixen— both young and old — reflecting on the question about, what peace means to you?

Another artwork, “Pallets,” is projecting the answers from the young and old people both in Brixen and 4 other places around Europe, about, what peace means for you?
The artist behind the installation is Marko Bolković from Croatia and  Visualia Studio in Pula. For him, peace is about balance — between the good and bad in life.
The installation is built from reused EU pallets sourced locally in Brixen, reducing CO₂ emissions and making it easier to transport to the other cities, that has collaborated with content, that is Copenhagen (Denmark), Oslo (Norway), Essen (Germany) and ofcource Pula and Brixen. – and more cities, that Pallets will visit, will add words about peace in the future. 

“Imagine Peace” is also the theme for Italian Kokoschka Revival, where the red light symbolises a peaceful place, creating hope at the end of the tunnel.
Old folk songs from borderlands, where people had to move to end wars, are heard and felt strongly.
Europe is filled with border areas that have changed due to wars, forcing people to either move or not to live in their own country anymore. A conflict that also is relevant in South Tyrol, that used to belong to Austria, until after World War 1 in 1918. A region, where german also still is used.
The work was also at the biennale in Venice and is called A mesa usc.

Two Ukrainian artists  now living in Norway are painting in sand.
Olga Kryzhanovska and Svitlana Danylchenko from the LightTheatre (Lysteatret).
Their work, “Imagine Peace,” unfolds a powerful live sand-painting transformation before the eyes of the audience — where the sand is shifting from a mother with her children to a boy facing soldiers in war. It is seen through the eyes of a mother, reflecting in a powerful way the innocent transition from peace to war for her. The art is presented inside the Church of Our Lady in the center of Brixen – a church that has been there since 980 AD!

On the façade of the library German artist Julian Hölscher (D) also has another angle on “Imagine Peace” saying that “trust is the social glue in our society”. The word is coming out of the facade of the library in Brixen.
In a time of AI the artist also find it relevant to play with the word – in his own way.

The Cathedral stands at the heart of Brixen, and on Piazza Duomo, visitors can find the installation “On Blank Pages,” where they are invited to reflect and write their thoughts on peace on the blank pages. Among the visitors is Paul Penkala from the United States. For him, peace is a message to his son who passed away in 2008. His family originally emigrated from South Tyrol to the U.S., and he is visiting the region for the first time.

The “Imagine Peace” project “Fragments,” by Claudia Reh, stretches here more than 100 meters — or about 330 feet — along the main pedestrian walkway in Brixen. The projected images are made up of collected fragments from war, alongside objects that symbolize peace — gathered from passersby and through workshops with both young and old participants.

Visiting Priscila Caldeira, 42, from São Paulo, Brazil, who also is on her honeymoon, have noticed the theme “Imagine Peace” and says that “you can feel the calm — and the message it’s trying to share.”

Brixen reminds visitors about, that peace is something many take for granted, inspite we have a war in Europe that has changed life forever for too many.

Brixen also aims to protect the people, the city, and the natural environment that surrounds it — a landscape that war could potentially destroy.

It is one of the oldest cities in South Tyrol, dating back to 901.
Brixen has a strong Christian heritage and was from the beginning a meeting point between southern and northern Europe.

The light art is set against the dramatic backdrop of the Dolomites in the Alps, where peaks rise 2,000 to 3,000 meters — or 6,500 to nearly 10,000 feet — above the valley.

The Brixen Water Light Festival runs until May 16, marking the UN International Day of Light.