Leipzig was one of the epicenters that ignited the revolutionary events leading to the fall of the GDR thirty years ago. In this historic trade city, courage first gathered—initially among a few, then among many. Here, the momentum built that would, over the following months, spark a chain of events culminating in the Peaceful Revolution. The Festival of Lights is dedicated to this memory: to the autumn of 1989 and, in particular, to October 9—the decisive day in Leipzig. In 2019, the city celebrated thirty years since the Peaceful Revolution, and with the Festival of Lights Leipzig 2019, conceived by Victoria Coeln, this vibrant, creative city set new international standards—artistically, conceptually, and socio-politically.
Since time immemorial, light has served as both metaphor and symbol for human existence. For some, it means life itself; for others, survival or transcendence; in earlier times, the divine. Coming together to celebrate a festival of light is an ancient cultural practice—perhaps the oldest and most beautiful—uniting people and communities. Such moments reveal that, regardless of age, gender, education, or history, we are fundamentally connected. Festivals of light create spaces that invite us to experience community and solidarity in a spirit of safety and celebration.
In 2015, UNESCO declared the International Year of Light, sparking a worldwide boom in new light festivals—most of them with commercial aims. Leipzig, however, stands apart. The Festival of Lights Leipzig was first established in 2009, rooted in the city’s unique history of peaceful resistance. Its origins lie in the historic turning point of October 9, 1989, when not stones, but candles, illuminated the path to the Peaceful Revolution. Today, Leipzig celebrates the triumph of freedom and law over fear and violence with a Festival of Lights that reinvents itself each year, remaining vibrant and relevant. Each year, new artists, citizen initiatives, and institutions are invited to participate, as the story of the Peaceful Revolution must—and can—be continually retold and carried into the future. The Leipzig Tourism and Marketing GmbH, responsible for the festival since its inception, has developed the format through years of dedicated work.
In today’s world, marked by political tension and rapid change, the Festival of Lights in Leipzig prompts pressing questions: What, exactly, do we celebrate in the Peaceful Revolution? How can the insights and experiences of the demonstrators, citizen forums, and initiatives of 1989 be carried forward? Can they help us respond to today’s threats to civil courage, freedom, human rights, and democracy? Are there parallels in social developments that can guide us now and in the future? How do we navigate the many layers of memory, interpretation, and appropriation?
Victoria Coeln, together with Leipzig civil rights activist Gesine Oltmanns, realized a bold Festival of Lights project that extended beyond a single day, embracing a months-long process of openness and participation. The project consisted of three core elements: the Light Studio, the Light Spaces, and the Light Ring. These elements came together as a “work in progress” on October 9, forming a comprehensive artwork that met both aesthetic and political aspirations.
The Light Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig marked the beginning. From May to August, Victoria Coeln established a public workspace that was at once studio, exhibition, rehearsal room, meeting place, and stage. Together with dancer and choreographer Žiga Jereb and numerous partners, she developed the concept for the Light Spaces. Performances, discussions, poetry slams, and musical formats not only engaged Leipzig’s citizens in the lead-up to the festival, but also generated material for the Light Spaces and the Light Ring. From September 4—the anniversary of the first Monday demonstration in autumn 1989—six Light Spaces unfolded along Leipzig’s inner city ring (a stretch of approximately 3.6 kilometers). At thirty locations, Coeln created light interventions using more than eighty projectors, culminating on October 9 in the formation of the Light Ring.
A musical collage, recorded in St. Nicholas Church with Simone Weißenfels (e-piano), Alex Pehlemann (electronics), Gwen Kyrg (voice), Julian aka darktonemedia (sampling), and Maria Wolfsberger (chromatic harmonica and organ), provided the acoustic framework. Original recordings and quotes from eyewitness interviews in the Light Studio and Light Spaces also referenced the events of autumn 1989.
SPACE – CLAIMING SPACE
Victoria Coeln’s engagement with space is grounded in the belief that space is not an objective container, but a construct shaped by perception, thought, and physical action.
As writer Jörg Jacob observes:
“The events of 1989 are past, but even after three decades they are present in Leipzig—in its buildings, its stories, and its people. Victoria Coeln’s work opens shadowed surfaces like windows into something elusive: old memories layered over time. We, the viewers, participate actively as we pass by, our shadows becoming part of the light intervention. As we shift our position relative to the illuminated surfaces, the form changes, moves. Relationships between the familiar and the unknown, and their constant transformation, become perceptible.”
In Leipzig, Coeln projected the visual and sonic material from the Light Studio onto the Light Ring, symbolically reclaiming public space and weaving it together with the space created in the studio. This act also echoes the reclaiming and occupation of public space by the Monday demonstrations of 1989.
LIGHT – CHROMOTOPIA
Since 2002, Victoria Coeln has developed temporary light interventions at politically or historically charged sites, interpreting them as site-specific acts of spatial appropriation. She overlays these places with chromatic light, creating new spaces—both literally and metaphorically. Since 2005, she has coined this process Chromotopia, with the Leipzig Festival of Lights 2019 as her most expansive project to date.
Each light intervention begins with an intensive and sensitive engagement with the site and its layered histories. Coeln traces spatial imprints, rendering them in her signature visual language: hatching, grids, silhouettes, and sometimes architectural fragments. Light, as an artistic material, is both precise and flexible. In Leipzig, Coeln used a wide range of chromotopic light fragments—formed on-site—which do not simply illuminate but animate the space with a sense of physical presence. These constructs oscillate between material and immaterial, imagined and real.
The result is an interplay not only of spatial structures but also of experiences, sensations, and memories. For example, the former Stasi headquarters (“Ohrenburg”) is interwoven with photographic imagery of St. Nicholas Church’s interior, itself overlaid with a grid of light. In this interplay, a site of repression glows in the light of resistance.
French sociologist Henri Lefebvre understood space as a social construct: society shapes space, and space shapes society. The processes underpinning this reciprocity—and how spatial change can effect social change—are today explored under the term critical spatial practices. Victoria Coeln responds clearly with her Chromotopias: by overwriting with light, spaces are removed from old contexts and recharged with new meaning. The re-illumination of a familiar place rewrites not only the space itself but also the memories associated with it—opening it to new encounters, experiences, and interpretations. The Light Space becomes a space of possibility; the act of overwriting becomes an invitation to re-describe.
Against this backdrop, Coeln’s artistic production is not “art for art’s sake,” not a decorative add-on or fleeting event, but a form of responsible societal work.
Victoria Coeln states:
“The language of light offers a powerful way to confront the threatening, the shadowy, and the uncertain with brightness, warmth, and hope. Can this language of light transform antagonisms, tensions, memories—even pain—into something beautiful?”
Finally, consider a quality that may seem out of step with contemporary art discourse, but remains vital: beauty. Can art still be beautiful? Is beauty a value?
Nobel laureate Herta Müller writes: “I believe beauty offers support, it protects or spares us.”
For her, beauty is linked to democracy and freedom—totalitarian regimes see it as a threat:
“Ugly uniformity oppresses the soul, breeds apathy and low expectations. That was the state’s goal.”
This leads to a powerful conclusion—especially in light of the 1989 events and the 30th anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution: Art not only may, but must be beautiful. A standard Victoria Coeln’s project meets—at first glance, and again and again.