Birmingham’s new central library resembles a fancy wedding cake, and a recent light-themed festival at the building certainly brought plenty of cheer. Lightfest was a celebration of light in science, art, technology and culture – held in connection with the International Year of Light and Light-based Technology (IYL 2015). This video captures some of the highlights of the event as various students and researchers give light-themed demonstrations to the public.

Lightfest was organized by Aston University and the choice of a public venue in central Birmingham, UK, enabled the event to reach out beyond the scientific community. “The basic idea is that researchers meet the public – particularly young people – and inspire people to take up science as a career, or to engage more with science,” says Paul Harris of the European Commission, which provided funding for the event. Among the demos featuring in this video are a “laser harp”, an “LED cube” and an experiment to show how different coloured gummy bears filter light in different ways.

“One of the most inspiring things about this year has been the way it’s brought together a uniquely wide variety of communities,” says Beth Taylor, chair of the IYL 2015 UK national committee, one of the speakers to officially open the event. If you want to find out more about the themes and goals of IYL 2015, take a look at this film we produced at the opening ceremony held in Paris back in January.

As an official media partner of IYL 2015, we have also commissioned a series of films that explore the impact of light and light-based technologies on people’s lives. Each film reflects the culture and geography of the country in which it was produced, telling captivating personal stories. You can view all of these films, along with articles about light, in this free-to-access digital collection, which you can read via your desktop or on your smartphone or tablet using our digital-magazine app.