Riga light festival Staro Rīga adds audio descriptions for blind visitors

Staro Rīga, the city’s annual festival of light, will fill Riga with 52 light works every evening from 15 to 18 November, between 17:00 and 23:00. The route is almost five kilometres long, according to the programme published by Riga City Council. This year’s theme is “unum momentum – that one moment”.

Audio descriptions for the first time

This year the festival will for the first time be more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. Socintegra, a social enterprise, has prepared professional audio descriptions of all 52 works, LSM, the Latvian public broadcaster, reported. They will be available on the festival website in Latvian and English.

The descriptions put into words what a sighted visitor takes in: the shape and scale of each installation, its composition and colours, how its parts are arranged and how the light moves. The project, “Staro Rīga: An Inclusive Experience”, is supported by the city council’s education, culture and sport department.

Where to walk

The river Daugava is the backbone of the route. On the left bank a loop runs from the Castle of Light, the National Library building, along the Mūkusala promenade; on the right bank it stretches from the Spīķeri quarter by the Central Market to Viesturdārzs park. The programme also covers the Old Town and the area from the Ave Sol concert hall to Kronvalda park.

• on the Castle of Light façade: ASCEND, a new work by Hungarian artist Laszlo Zolt Bordos;
• on Castle Square: an interactive installation by Norwegian artist Anastasia Isachen;
• on the Riga Congress Centre façade: a projection by the Hungarian group Lightspray Visual using analogue projectors;
• in Viesturdārzs: SOLEIL NUIT, a kinetic sculpture by French artist Sebastien Lefevre with more than 5,000 mirror elements;
• at the Freedom Monument: Dižkoku balsis (Voices of the Great Trees), an installation that will become a concert stage on 18 November.

The programme also includes seven installations by students of the Art Academy of Latvia and four light works made by students of the Latvian Culture College together with students from nine countries. More than two-thirds of the main programme are new works by Latvian light artists. November evenings are cold, so it is worth splitting the route into sections.