Portland Winter Light Festival Announces Dates and Call for Applications for 10th Annual

It’s heatwave season, but organizers of the Portland Winter Light Festival are already thinking about cooler nights ahead. PDXWLF has announced its 2025 festival, which will take place February 7-15. The annual gathering will be its 10th festival, capping a decade of free light art installations spread across the city. Its optimistic theme, “A Light for Tomorrow,” nods to the short days and long nights of winter, as well as the creeping darkness that has infected our present moment.

In their July 10 announcement, PDXWLF organizers also issued a call for artists for next year. The call is open not only to visual artists, but also to performing artists and a broader range of creatives, such as architecture and design firms.

Last year, the festival featured nearly 160 installations from more than 400 artists, who used everything from LED panels to spitting flames to illuminate their works. While admission is free, organizers estimate that PDXWLF contributed $10 million to the local economy last year. In addition to generous donors like Google, Alaska Airlines and Portland General Electric, projects from architecture and design firms are also subject to a $300 exhibition fee once selected.

“The Festival of Lights, like no other, galvanizes audiences around art, creativity and community,” Alisha Sullivan, executive director of the Willamette Light Brigade, the nonprofit arts organization behind PDXWLF, said in a press release. “This year, we celebrate our 10th anniversary and how art—particularly accessible, playful, light-based art—can bring positive invigoration to Portland in the winter when we need it most.”

PDXWLF themes aren’t always rigid. Even with last year’s ocean theme, sci-fi sculptures of a robot, a UFO, and a blooming, flaming flower were prominently displayed downtown. And though the festival ended months ago, remnants of the 2024 spectacle still animate downtown Portland.

BRASSEA sprawling, tactile exhibition launched in February by art collective Roboto Octopodo—comprised of current and former PDXWLF organizers—reopened in May at four times its original size. BRASSE still attracts visitors with features like a scavenger hunt and generous air conditioning. A few weeks later, the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Environmental Management Bureau jointly announced that Nautilus of the deepAn iridescent metal sculpture that debuted at the Salmon Springs Fountain on the waterfront will be on display at Pride Plaza at Southwest 12th Avenue and Harvey Milk Street until August, when another sculpture will take its place.