Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival

History

Luminaria is a dynamic nonprofit arts organization dedicated to producing and promoting the arts of San Antonio, Texas, by managing the iconic Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival, the Luminaria Artist Foundation grants program, and culturally driven creative PlaceMaking.

Luminaria began as a city-led nonprofit initiative in 2008 by then Mayor Phil Hardberger and the Department of Arts and Culture to highlight the arts in a nighttime festival. Drawing inspiration from Paris’s Nuit Blanche and Madrid’s Noche en Blanco, they invited all the arts organizations and artists of San Antonio to create a communal celebration.

For the next several years, community advocates and arts professionals served on volunteer committees to showcase the arts in various formats and locations, most notably downtown in front of the Alamo, along Houston Street, and into unused city parks. The night festival drew thousands into downtown and inspired all with the multimedia works, creative performances, and fanciful lighting.

As downtown areas became developed and as city funding reduced, the Luminaria Board of Directors created a strategic plan in 2013. This plan called for far-reaching changes, including international appeal and marketing, multiple days, and a moving footprint. The 2013 festival included many artists from South America and spurred the organization’s entry into site-specific murals.

The Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival was subsequently produced in the Museum Reach of the San Antonio River Walk and on the historic East Side before once again settling downtown at Hemisfair. Luminaria’s featured artists at the festivals displayed a mix of original art in diverse medias, presenting to tens of thousands annually.

Luminaria would strengthen and grow their commitment to artists with grants to local artists. In 2020 and 2021 Luminaria awarded $99,000 to 13 artists for new works under the Luminaria Artist Foundation grant program. Due to the COVID-19 health pandemic, the annual arts festival was cancelled, yet Luminaria responded to artists’ needs by creating the Corona Arts Relief grant program. CAR awarded over $62,000 to artists and has been rebranded as the Working Artist Fund to award up to $550 for professional development activities. As of Spring 2023, WAF has awarded $28,416 to Bexar County artists for professional development activities with a grand total of $189,416 grant dollars awarded to local artists since 2020.

In 2021, Luminaria conducted another strategic plan resulting in a desire from artists and the community to have more Luminaria events in more places around the city and to primarily support local artists as we enter a post-pandemic reality. Over 250 artists participated in 2022 Luminaria Contemporary Festival featuring fine art, film, poetry, sculptures, digital art, and live music. Artists from the San Antonio area comprised the majority of Featured Artists and were accompanied by artists from Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Germany, Mexico City, Monterrey, Mexico, S Korea, Canada, and England ranging in age from 16-72. The festival is representative of our city’s minority-majority demographic (65% Latinx, 7% Black); stimulates tourism; and drives economic development. In 2022, Luminaria issued $144,176 in grants and contracts to working artists.