Cathedral of Light

This year, Rouen’s Notre-Dame Cathedral will be decked out in its finest lights, with the projection of two back-to-back shows:

• Floraison Sauvage – NEW
  As night falls, the façade of the cathedral becomes the screen for an original creation by Japanese artist Mika Ninagawa. Through monumental mapping, this major figure on the Japanese contemporary scene unfurls her rich pop universe in dialogue with the Gothic architecture. The artist unveils an intense, immersive and resolutely pop visual: his dazzling flowers cover the majestic cathedral in a striking encounter between Japanese tradition and contemporary culture, between the Rinpa aesthetic, a 17th-century artistic movement, and the energy of Tokyo’s neon lights.This encounter continues at the Grand-Quevilly Rose Garden, where the artist is exhibiting another facet of his work throughout the summer, with free access. The square in front of the cathedral is also the venue for the Festival’s opening weekend, on Saturday 30 May, with a DJ set, designed as a popular, unifying party.

• Première Impression – UNRELEASED
  Discover this new immersive show, a unique visual experience inspired by Impressionism. This original creation transports you into a poetic universe where peaceful canoes, glistening water lilies, the Giverny bridge and wave-beaten Normandy cliffs, so dear to the Impressionist painters, mingle. The cathedral is sometimes adorned in shadow, sometimes in light, with aquatic reflections that are in turn translucent and multicoloured, offering a living spectacle in perpetual motion. From Impressionism to Pointillism, the story takes you to a young woman on a swing, evoking the world of Renoir’s film Une partie de campagne, while the show moves subtly towards cinema and the digital arts.

• Friday 29 May: 11pm

• Saturday 30 May: launch party

• From 1 to 28 June: Fridays and Saturdays at 11 p.m.

• 1 to 31 July: every evening at 11 pm

• 1 to 15 August: every evening at 10.30pm

• 16 to 30 August: every evening at 10 pm

• 1 to 26 September: Fridays and Saturdays, 9.30pm

Each evening, free screenings of the two shows, Floraison Sauvage and Première Impression, in two consecutive loops (approx. 50 minutes).

Launch evening

On Saturday 30 May from 10.15pm to 11.45pm, enjoy a screening of Floraison Sauvage followed by a DJ set with Barbara Butch, the artist who took part in the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.