City Brights III - Temporary Public Art in Downtown Albuquerque
It's Glow Time: New Art Installations are Illuminating Downtown.
The Department of Arts & Culture and Public Art Urban Enhancement Division announces the launch of City Brights III. Nine temporary light-based art installations envisioned by Albuquerque based artists will be placed in businesses and city property, activating Downtown in a unique way. The City Brights III project encourages engagement between artists and the downtown community.
Many of the installations are interactive, featuring architectural light interventions, lighted sculptures, digital projections, and more. Viewable from the sidewalks of downtown, each installation creates a brilliant interactive experience for visitors and residents. The project will roll out beginning with the December 2025, January and February 2026, First Friday ArtWalks in Downtown Albuquerque.
In honor of the Route 66 Centennial, City Brights III innovatively celebrates this storied stretch of highway through Downtown Albuquerque. The installations will be on view through the spring of 2026.
Learn more about the City Brights III Projects.
Learn more about the City Brights III Activations.
We would love to see your encounters with City Brights III! Post and tag your photos:
Instagram: @ABQPublicArt and @ABQArtWalk
Facebook: Albuquerque Public Art
Suggested hashtags:
- #ABQCityBrightsIII
- #ABQPublicArt
- #CABQCulture
- #OneAlbuquerque
Projects
Stay tuned for future artist announcements, project locations, and descriptions! In addition to the nine City Brights III installations launching in 2025/2026, two installations are still on view from City Brights II.
City Brights III
- Western Skies Lantern Walk - Robert M. Allen
- Tower of Cower II - Alonso Indacochea and Adrian Pijoan
- Lonely Souls - Abby Butler and John-Mark Collins
- The Candlelit City - Clay + Coda
- If Only I were a candle in the dark: Cosm - Cameron Krow
- Roadrunner 66 - Ashley and Jonathan LeBlanc
- Realigned - Grow Your Own Routes - Lisa Casaus
- Chromesthesia - Ben Harrison
City Brights II
Western Skies Lantern Walk
Location: Lantern procession down Central Avenue from the Robinson Park triangle between Park and Central Avenues at 8th Street east to 4th Street and back. Lantern making workshops took place at OffCenter Community Arts Project at 808 Park Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102.
Launch: December 5, 2025 procession during ArtWalk
Description: Robert M. Allen led a community project series offering lantern making workshops. There will also be a presentation on the history of lighted paper lanterns and lantern celebrations from around the world. Workshop participants, along with family, friends and the public are invited to walk with their lantern creations in a procession down Central Avenue during the December 2025 ArtWalk. The Lantern Walk celebrates the night sky, and artworks include depictions of stars, galaxies, planets, comets, moons, satellites, along with nocturnal animals and other creatures. The title of the procession references the historic Route 66 roadside hotel, Western Skies, which was once considered one of Albuquerque's most glamorous hotels, welcoming many travelers along the historic highway. The project also reminds all who visit to look up and take in New Mexico's wondrous immense skies and wide-open horizons.
Artist Links and Socials:
Instagram: @rallenabqart
Tower of Cower II
Location: Lobby of Studio 519 at 519 Central Ave NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Launch: December 5, 2025 during ArtWalk
Description: Tower of Cower II takes the form of a multi-level screen sculptures constructed from vintage CRT and LED televisions, some functioning and others gutted and fitted with mirrors that scatter light outward. The screens cycle between short silent films on migration and surveillance, plus live footage of visitors captured in real time. The tower becomes both watcher and witness, projecting stories of border crossings while reflecting the gaze of its audience back onto itself.
Artists Links and Socials:
Dust Wave
Website: dustwave.xyz
Instagram: @waveofdust
YouTube: @dustwavecollective
Adrian Pijoan
Website: www.adrianpijoan.net
Instagram: @adrian_pijoan
Lonely Souls
Location: East, street level windows of Gizmo Building, 410 Central Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Launch: February 6, 2026 ArtWalk. The animated story will play every day, 5 times per hour at the 10-minute mark, from 6 pm to 2 am.
Description: Artists Abby Butler and John-Mark Collins will create a multimedia experience that explores themes of relationships and isolation. Passerby encounter Olvindi and Peyo, two lonely souls yearning for attachment. Their bodies are composed of physical materials, yet their souls are reflected through light and animated mapped projections. What is their story? What is our own? How will our concurrent journeys coincide and combine? Will we find joy? Rather than reflecting any particular identity or viewpoint, the installation focuses on the universal experience of connection. It's meant to be encountered by anyone, in whatever way feels true to them.
Artist Links and Socials:
Abby Butler
Website: www.colorwired.com
Instagram: @mysky.ceramics
Facebook: MY SKY Ceramics
John-Mark Collins
Website: wonderandlight.com
Instagram: @JMCjedi / @thelab_atstardust / @wonderandlightart
The Candlelit City
Location: Walkway on 2nd Street SW between Flyby Provisions (201 Coal Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102) and Bloom Stone (417 2nd St SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102)
Launch: February 6, 2026 ArtWalk
Description: The Candlelit City reimagines a downtown corridor into a luminous passageway - a road, a runway, and a meditative path. Inspired by Route 66's winding journey through New Mexico's rugged landscape, the installation creates a beacon of light that honors heritage and activates place. Just as neon once lit the way along Route 66, this installation creates a modern beacon that guides visitors into Albuquerque's creative core. Sculptural forms and hundreds of LED lights transform the walkway into a glowing canyon of stone and flame. At once a social space for intimate reflection, the passageway will be transformed into a runway for fashion events with local designers and other public programs.
Artist Links and Socials:
Clay + Coda
Website: claycoda.com
Instagram: @claycoda
Facebook: CLAY + CODA
If Only I were a candle in the dark: Cosm
Location: East wall of Sister Bar Patio at 407 Central NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Description: Cameron Krow's light-filled spherical sculpture is inspired by a poetic inquiry into what it means to hold onto and project the light in a world that often feels overwhelmed by darkness. Cosm glows from within, emitting soft, diffused light and is composed of piñon and juniper branches, concrete rubble, welded steel, LED lights, and glass. It appears at once as a planetary object which has crashed in from the heavens and as some kind of ore which is being pushed out from the earth's core. The title references both 'macrocosm' and 'microcosm' to intentionally suspend distinguishing between the two, and attempts to illustrate that it is really all the same thing. There is no inner- and outer-space - there's just space. What is earthly is also heavenly. What is light is also stardust. Once we remember what we really are, we begin to see ourselves in everything else and can then work to live in alignment with that truth, spreading the love that connects us to all things.
Artist Links and Socials:
Cameron Krow
Website: www.cameronkrow.com
Instagram: @cameronkrow
Roadrunner 66
Location: Various locations in the downtown corridor between January and February 2026
Description: Roadrunner 66 is an illuminated sculpture of New Mexico’s state bird. LED lighting technology is used as a sustainable tribute to the glowing tradition of neon signs along historic Route 66. The sculpture's polygon shape draws viewers in as a striking geometric landmark by day and a glowing invitation for people to enjoy Downtown Albuquerque nightlife and culture. The art invites viewers to discuss the beauty of traveling our state, the history and symbolism of Route 66 signage, and enjoy the downtown corridor for City Brights III. The work will be shown at several locations for optimal viewing during the Artwalk and Route 66 centennial celebration.
Artist Links and Socials:
Ashley and Jonathan LeBlanc
Instagram: @ziacide and @leblancnoise
Realigned - Grow Your Own Routes
Artist: Lisa Casaus
Location: West street-level windows of the Gizmo Building, 410 Central Ave SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Launch: February 6, 2026 ArtWalk
Description: Lisa Casaus illuminates her illustrated characters along with impressions of the spine and twisting roads in X-Ray-style lightboxes. She envisions the spine as a perfect theme for celebrating 100 years of Route 66 because: As the central axis to the body, the spine embodies a "Mother Road" or the "main street of America," as highway for information and energy exchange. There are 33 vertebrae in a normal human spine, which, in addition to being half of 66, is the same number of counties in New Mexico. Sections of the route are called 'alignments' and require maintenance the same way our bodies do. The individual pieces of the spine and pelvis mimic the chevron road sign amazingly well. Realigned - Grow Your Own Routes explores both the historical significance of Route 66 and the impacts of spinal health on overall wellness.
Artist Links and Socials:
Lisa Casaus
Website: www.lisacasaus.com
Instagram: @lisacasausartist
Chromesthesia
Location: Glass brick wall at 413 Central Ave NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Launch: February 6, 2026 ArtWalk
Description: Ben Harrison has been creating a new body of work that explores experiencing chromesthesia, a phenomenon where sounds, such as music, trigger the perception of colors. While studying the relationship between color and sound frequencies, he developed a mathematical equation with Professor Brian Rashap at CNM, that converts sound into colors. For his City Brights installation, a downtown glass brick wall becomes an animated canvas of LED light, color and sound. Passerby activate the wall with their voice and other sounds. The wall responds in real time as soundwave signals are processed through a computer program and instantly transformed into corresponding colored lights behind the glass.
Artist Links and Socials:
Ben Harrison
Website: benharrison.art
Instagram: @b3nh4rrison
Interefraction
Location: West wall of OT Circus, 709 Central Ave NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
Description: Large transparent colored hands attached to the side of the long wall on the side of OT Circus create colorful reflections during the day. LEDs mounted in the base of each hand create a gentle glow at night. Passerby will delight in the shadow play and wonder of these large lighted sculptures. The artist's statement describes "A strong value of community is to reach out for help and to lend a hand to others, and the goal of this installation is to create dialogue on what community means, and how we can all lend our hands to build a resilient one."
Artist Links and Socials:
Dason Culver
Website: www.dasonculver.com/portfolio
Instagram: @coyoteculver
Paige
Location: Main Library, 501 Copper Ave NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, the 5-pane window facing the intersection of 5th Street and Copper Avenue
Description: Viewable day and night in the Main Library's front window is Paige. Paige celebrates her love of reading, glowing with the magic books bring to life. During the day, she offers a quiet place to rest and read in a tucked away corner of the library's second floor. David Santiago combines form and function in this large lighted sculpture that also serves as a comfortable bench to relax amid the bustle of downtown Albuquerque.
Artist Links and Socials:
David Santiago
Website: stjameart.com
Instagram: @stjame
Activations
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