SPECTRA IS SCOTLAND’S LEADING URBAN LIGHT FESTIVAL

SPECTRA, Scotland’s premier urban light festival, is organized by Aberdeen City Council in collaboration with arts producers and placemakers Curated Place. Scheduled to return in 2022, SPECTRA promises to illuminate the winter nights, offering a remarkable blend of light and sound.

From February 10th to 13th, 2022, SPECTRA will unite artists, intellectuals, musicians, and businesses with the public, providing an immersive experience of the city. Expect interactive sculptures, architectural projections, and experimental music inspired by Scotland’s Year of Stories. Concurrently, the Catalyst Conference will reconvene to link Scotland’s cultural sphere with counterparts across Nordic Nations and beyond.

SPECTRA has garnered national acclaim, clinching The Drum Scottish Event Awards for two consecutive years. It features prominently in the city’s destination strategy, Events 365 Strategy, and Culture Aberdeen, its decade-long cultural roadmap. The festival has laid the groundwork for other visual arts festivals in Aberdeen and has served as a model for cities across the UK piloting their own light festivals.

The vision for SPECTRA is to become a hallmark winter event for the region and beyond, a premium platform to showcase the city’s unique character, abundant assets, vibrant creative community, and cultural venues. Aberdeen aims to assert itself as a contemporary hub of design and technology, steeped in cultural heritage.

SPECTRA acknowledges and embraces the deep-rooted connection and shared history in visual culture and storytelling across regions, transcending national boundaries. Its lineup of artworks draws inspiration from literature and landscape, delving into how stories, art, light, and sound shape our evolving experiences of space and place.

SPECTRA aims to forge links between Aberdeen’s past, present, and future with its Scandinavian neighbors, fostering cultural, social, and economic ties. The program underscores the significance of identity in the North East and the potential for future collaborations.

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