Lights On Stratford featuring UWaterloo Stratford artwork

Lights On Stratford will feature art installations made by fourth-year University of Waterloo students.

The students from the Stratford School of Interaction Business and Design, the local University of Waterloo campus, enrolled in the course Special Topics in Digital Culture have three art installations included in Lights On Stratford. The large-scale projects titled Healing Currents, When We Come Together, and Ripples Through Time, represent community connection, responsibility, and creativity. The three installations will be inside the Destination Stratford Welcome Office on 47 Downie St.

This will be the second time that students from instructor David Han’s class will be participating in Lights On. The 46 students were divided into several groups to work on their projects, and the top three projects were selected.

Several students don’t reside in Stratford and take a shuttle bus from University of Waterloo’s main campus to get to and from their classes in Stratford. Han said creating large-scale projects for Lights On allows the students to engage with the city.

"What I really wanted them to do is think about this place that they've been coming to school and spending so much of their time, what it could mean and what it might mean and try to engage with it in that way, especially ‘cause Lights On is a very Stratford-specific festival,” he said.

Destination Stratford’s executive director Zac Gribble and sport development and tourism director Kylie Wasser came to one of the classes to talk about Destination Stratford and the importance of public art. Indigenous educator Patsy Ann Day taught the students about the 13 Grandmother Moons, which was a stepping stone for the students to then do further research and incorporate concepts into their art. To avoid appropriation and only re-telling the stories, the students had to think of the concepts from the stories and how it applies to them.

"I think the students really did take up that challenge and I'm really excited for people to see the results of all that work,” Han said.

All Lights On exhibits can be viewed during the evenings from 5-10 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday until Jan. 18, 2026.