Decemberlicht
16 December 2025 until 4 January 2026
With Decemberlicht, the duo Kroft & Smids brings light to the dark days around Christmas and New Year by transforming buildings at various locations in Leeuwarden’s city centre into places where stories are told, in words or in images, through projected artworks.
Kroft & Smids consists of Karina Kroft and Remko Smids. When everything came to a standstill during the first COVID lockdown in the spring of 2020, Karina Kroft and Remko Smids projected the towering text “Only in darkness can you see the stars” onto a block of flats in Leeuwarden. It was the first gesture in a series of seventy consecutive evenings with hopeful projections at various locations in and around Leeuwarden. A new love was born: light projections in public space to encourage, surprise, and move people.
Since that first spontaneous action on 28 March 2020, they have carried out several projects, including daily projections for the Groningen-based Jonge Harten Festival (’21 and ’22), Midzomernachtlicht, consisting of ten projections within the framework of Bosklab (’22), and two Praamverhalen, Peer Gynt (’21) and King Lear (’23). At the end of 2022, Kroft & Smids went international when they created the Nobel Light Walk…
Kroft & Smids consists of Karina Kroft and Remko Smids. When everything came to a standstill during the first COVID lockdown in the spring of 2020, Karina Kroft and Remko Smids projected the towering text “Only in darkness can you see the stars” onto a block of flats in Leeuwarden. It was the first gesture in a series of seventy consecutive evenings with hopeful projections at various locations in and around Leeuwarden. A new love was born: light projections in public space to encourage, surprise, and move people.
Since that first spontaneous action on 28 March 2020, they have carried out several projects, including daily projections for the Groningen-based Jonge Harten Festival (’21 and ’22), Midzomernachtlicht, consisting of ten projections within the framework of Bosklab (’22), and two Praamverhalen, Peer Gynt (’21) and King Lear (’23). At the end of 2022, Kroft & Smids went international when they created the Nobel Light Walk for Nobel Week Lights in Stockholm during the week leading up to the Nobel Prize ceremony.
In early 2024, Kroft & Smids created routes under the name Winterljocht in Harlingen, Sloten, and Dokkum, which will be continued in early 2025 in Heerenveen, Hindeloopen, and Franeker. Over the past two years, they have also served as the artistic directors for the light festival Licht op Drachten, for which they created several spatial light installations.
TIP! Follow the blue lantern light…
