Portsmouth is about to light up again. We Shine, the free citywide light festival first launched by Portsmouth Creates in 2021, returns from Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 November, with everything running between 5pm and 9pm. This year's edition is built around a bit of local history: it marks 100 years since Portsmouth was awarded city status, and it's being put on by four organisations working together — Portsmouth Creates, Art-Up, Play Office and Fratton Together.
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The festival spreads across several sites, so it's worth picking a couple rather than trying to do it all. Cosham Park in the north of the city becomes a collection of light installations and artworks, with Stevie Thompson's 'Mycelium Network' and 'Tigerboat's Most Marvellous Shadow Show', Claudia La Bianca's 'Kaleidoscopic Mandala', glowing swings on 'Swing Together', and a whole run of free creative activities alongside. Over at Victoria Park, Art Up turns the place into 'Park Light', an immersive mix of light, performance and visual art where you can climb inside the belly of a huge inflatable whale by Circo Rum Ba Ba Ba, take in 'Peace and Dove' by Filthy Luker X Designs in Air or 'Greenhouse in the Park', and catch performances in the more unexpected corners of the park.
For something more indoor and tech-led, Boathouse 5 at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is handed over to Play Office, which fills it with immersive, interactive and digital work from artists here and abroad — VR, moving image, sound and creative technology all exploring memory, place and connection, and forming part of the Memory Library. And in Fratton, the celebrations centre on the traditional lantern parade, which is now in its tenth year. It sets off at 7pm on Friday 20 November from the Victory Business Centre on Somers Road North and makes its way down Fratton Road to St Mary's Churchyard, led by the Batala Samba band, with the band and a church and community choir continuing later at the illuminated cemetery. If you want to carry a lantern yourself, workshops run through the half term with Splodge Designs, or you can make one at home — battery lit only, no naked flames.
One piece is worth a bit of extra attention. 'Stretch', at St Mary's Church in Fratton, is an interactive installation and sound sculpture made from thousands of strands of fine elastic, created by Sophia Clist with Nick Burge and presented by Fratton Together. It's built as a boundary to be encountered, explored and transformed, with sound and projection that respond to you: touch triggers sound that's captured, processed and amplified, while imagery generated in response is projected back onto the work. Movement artists work their way through it, finding new ways to move and improvise within the shifting landscape, and this version is set to be the widest and largest one yet. It's open to all ages and stays up past the main festival weekend, with sessions on Saturday 21 November (1pm-4pm and 5pm-9pm), Sunday 22 November (12pm-3pm and 4pm-7pm) and Monday and Tuesday 23 and 24 November (4pm-7pm).
Beyond the main sites, the programme carries into the community with a light installation at St Mary's by Heinrich & Palmer, 'Forged in Water' at Hilsea Lido with immersive underwater visuals and music by local artist VESPER, and a neon piece in a shipping container by the Hilsea moat. It's a free evening out that works as well for families as it does for anyone who just likes a bit of light after dark.
Published Date
10 November 2026
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