STAPLETON — The annual LUMEN video and art festival will skip its eighth year and instead hold a months-long exhibition celebrating its past, organizers said.
Staten Island Arts, which has put on the festival in various locations around the borough since 2010, decided to put the festival on hold to better plan how to deal with its huge growth after more than 4,000 people showed up last year.
"This is something we kind of learned by doing and we're really excited to see it grow and we know that it comes as a risk," said Monica Valenzuela, deputy director of Staten Island Arts. "We decided to use this year to take a deep breathe to celebrate LUMEN's past."
The large increase in attendees led to lines to get in the festival and overwhelmed organizers. This year, the group also moved its gallery from the St. George Ferry Terminal to URBY in Stapleton and has been working on its Future Culture project.
"The intent is to definitely continue it," Valenzuela said. "It's something that we really value and we want to do right. We're already talking about next year."
The LUMEN8 exhibit, which will run from June 15 to Sept. 10 at the URBY space, will feature the return of pieces from previous years — including a giant light pendulum made by Staten Island sculptor Scott Van Campen in 2014 — and some new video work.
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The exhibit, co-curated by Valenzuela and Raul Barquet, will also feature videos and photos by artists and attendees from the festivals.
"Consider it like a LUMEN spread out rather than a one day shebang," Valenzuela said.
The festival started in 2010 as opportunity for video, light and multimedia artists to get out of small galleries around the city and get their work seen by more people, Valenzuela said.
In the first year, organizers had a budget of $9,000 and about 800 people showed up.
They continued to put it on in different spots, returning to the salt depot every even year, and worked with more than 450 artists from around the world as part of the festival.
LUMEN continued to grow and a year ago had a budget of $40,000, 34 pieces and introduced an artists market.
Valenzuela said they're working to try to put the festival on at a more permanent location — potentially Atlantic Salt — and make a full list of artists who participated in previous year in the interim.
