Beauty in darkness – and light TEXT: MARTIN PILKINGTON  |  PHOTOS: CLERVAUX CITY

This spring, Clervaux in Luxembourg’s Ardennes explores the beauty of dark skies – through art, music, and some extraordinary photography. And there are many more reasons year-round to visit the town. The festival, NIGHT, Light & More, in the north of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg will come to a stunning climax this May in the beautiful town of Clervaux. Exhibitions and other creative events are taking place there as part of this drive to celebrate the splendour of the night sky, and to facilitate our ability to see it.The festival wants to alert people to the international problem of light pollution caused by excessive, misdirected artificial light in the night environment, pollution that disrupts ecosystems and spoils our natural environment. 14  |  Issue 75  |  March 2020

Innovative spectacles The Our Nature Park and the Upper Sûre Nature Park are joining efforts across the country to address this. New public lighting will be installed in 2020 in Clervaux with that in mind, and from Friday 22 May to Sunday 24, the small town will witness some amazing evening musical performances and innovative spectacles – among them, The Museum of the Moon – to mark the closure of the NIGHT, Light & More Festival.

Wide-ranging events Clervaux of course offers a multitude of reasons to visit throughout the year, both in daytime and at night, and not just during the NIGHT, Light & More Festival. Most notably, the town has long been the home of the historic and UNESCO-listed pho-

tography collection The Family of Man, exhibited at the chateau since 1994. There are plenty of other photography exhibitions in the town, too, with a succession of open-air displays by ‘Clervaux – Cité de l’image’ showing the work of contemporary photographers on walls, in the flower gardens and on thoroughfares throughout Clervaux, with guided