From a lighting-technology perspective, the translucent quality of Jinju silk lanterns from South Korea, the vibrant colour saturation of Brazil’s multicoloured patchwork lanterns, and the intricate light-and-shadow cutwork created through Poland’s traditional “Łowicz” paper-cutting art each demonstrate distinctive material optical properties and traditional approaches to manipulating light sources.

Rather than pursuing a uniform lighting environment, this design strategy creates an immersive and dynamic luminous space through high-density combinations of contrasting colours, intensities, and lighting effects. The rich visual variation naturally engages the human eye’s response to novelty and change, turning a simple walk through the lantern display into a cross-cultural “journey of light” across continents. In this context, lighting becomes more than a decorative element. Its visual language reflects Hong Kong’s identity as an open, diverse, inclusive, and internationally connected city, using light to communicate cultural diversity while creating a shared festive experience.

As a cultural anchor of the event, the four groups of giant lantern installations inspired by Nanjing Qinhuai Lantern Craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage with a history spanning more than 1,700 years, demonstrate how traditional craftsmanship can be successfully reinterpreted within the context of contemporary public lighting. At the heart of this approach is a deeper exploration of light as an intangible element, going beyond its conventional function of simply providing illumination.

The eight-metre-tall themed lantern installation, “Shadowlight,” takes Hong Kong’s iconic banyan tree as its design inspiration. Its lighting concept lies in the multilayered, three-dimensional rendering of the tree’s lush and expansive canopy. Coloured gauze is used to soften and diffuse the light, creating the translucent effect of overlapping layers of leaves, while the carefully positioned internal light sources accentuate the cascading forms of the banyan tree’s aerial roots and enhance the installation’s sense of spatial depth. The official Hong Kong Tourism Board describes the installation as an eight-metre banyan tree that combines Qinhuai lantern craftsmanship with contemporary lighting effects and offers a 360-degree viewing experience.

Here, light becomes a structural element in spatial storytelling, transforming the installation from a simple visual focal point into an immersive field of light and shadow that visitors can enter and walk through.

Similarly, “Lotus Fish” focuses on the interaction between light, water, and shadow. Through the carefully arranged lotus-leaf forms and illuminated koi weaving among them, the static installation creates a dynamic illusion of fish playing among lotus leaves.

Meanwhile, “Moonlit Lotus,” featuring a seven-metre-high giant full moon set against glowing lotus lanterns on the pond, offers a large-scale lighting interpretation of the poetic Chinese aesthetic of “two figures in the shadow of the moon.” By establishing a symmetrical relationship between reflections and physical light sources, the installation expands the poetic dimension of the surrounding space. The Hong Kong Tourism Board likewise highlights the installation’s combination of a majestic full moon, glowing lotus lanterns, and rich cultural symbolism.

Through precise control of light colour, materials, illumination, and spatial composition, these installations breathe new life into traditional intangible cultural heritage, translating centuries-old lantern craftsmanship into a contemporary visual and lighting experience.

In contrast to the international character and artistic expression of the previous two sections, the Hong Kong Lantern Garden returns to one of the most fundamental dimensions of lighting design: emotion.

More than 400 traditional Hong Kong handcrafted lanterns, featuring familiar motifs such as jade rabbits, carambolas, and goldfish, are densely suspended around the hilltop pavilion, recreating the local memory of “Lantern Street” at Yuen Long Bridge Street Market. The lighting strategy here can be described as “designing by subtraction.” Rather than relying on sophisticated lighting choreography, the installation deliberately embraces simple, high-saturation coloured light arranged in repetitive arrays to recreate the familiar festive lighting environment of everyday Hong Kong life.

Although technically uncomplicated, this nostalgic lighting landscape precisely taps into the triggers of collective memory. Here, light becomes an emotional catalyst—its value lies not in visual novelty, but in the sense of psychological return and comfort it evokes. This creates a deeper connection with the event’s central theme of “Reunion.” It reminds us that perhaps the highest form of lighting design is not simply the ability to illuminate a space, but the ability to illuminate the warm imagination of “home” and tradition deep within the human heart.

Bringing together global languages of light, intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, and a deep sense of home, this lantern festival offers an inspiring example of how lighting can contribute to the cultural and emotional identity of Hong Kong as “Asia’s World City.”