Light Mapping Festival Returns to Rio for the Second Year

By Georgia Grimond, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The second Rio Mapping Festival is lighting up the city for the next ten days. Based in the Parque das Ruínas in Santa Teresa, the festival will also spring up in neighborhoods all over Rio and a selection of music, workshops, film, performances and other activities will run.

Visual mapping is a growing form of urban art. It uses light to project designs and films onto buildings, walls and other objects, incorporating existing architecture and surfaces. Using specific software VJs create layered images and optical illusions often on a large scale.

“The festival aims to have visual impact on the city of Rio de Janeiro in a prominent moment for the tourist, artistic and cultural scene. In addition, we want to attract and amplify public consumer culture to a form that is free and interactive, integrating visual art, music and architecture in public spaces through creativity, experimentation and technology,” says visual artist, director and curator of the event Paulinho Sacramento.

VJs Ratón, Paulo China, Grassmann and Chico Abreu, along with Coletivo Mshare, Jodele Larcher, Lê Pantoja, DJ Saddam, Leandro VJ and Sacramento himself will all be participating. Plástico Preto and the Companhia Contemporânea Mulher de Palavra (Company of Contemporary Women of Words) will be putting on poetic and theatrical performances.

The Rio Mapping Festival will be spread out across the city, and spectators expect to see works and designs in Santa Teresa, Botafogo, Madureira, Duque de Caxias, Ilha Grande, Jacarepaguá, Praça Tiradentes, Museu da Maré and the Ilha do Governador.

The festival opens at 6:30 PM this evening with performances at the Parque das Ruínas, where there is also an exhibition in the gallery is showing a works created by the pupils of Rio’s public schools.

All events throughout the festival are free. Refer to their Facebook page for the full schedule.