Sept 27

Hilary Wellsford

Hilary Wellsford is a multidisciplinary artist and writer from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Her creative practice spans poetry, fiction, memoir, clay art, jewelry, watercolor, collage, guitar, singing, and songwriting. Deeply inspired by Cape Breton’s landscapes and storytelling traditions, Hilary’s current work, “Skywritten On Cape Breton Shores” explores nature, memory, experience, spirituality, and the emotional and literal seasons of human life. A graduate of NSCC’s Therapeutic Recreation program and Cape Breton University’s BA in Community Studies, she has worked with diverse populations, bringing compassion and creativity to every facet of her life. Hilary’s experiences living across Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean, and Europe enrich her art, yet Cape Breton’s landscapes and close-knit communities remain her deepest inspiration. As a lifelong learner and creative, she believes in finding meaning at the intersection of science, mysticism, and everyday moments.

Skywritten On Cape Breton Shores

Community Project

Step into a living constellation of Cape Breton voices. Skywritten On Cape Breton Shores is an interactive poetry and sound installation by Hilary Wellsford, inviting you to read original poems aloud, dedicate them, or share reflections. Your voice becomes part of a collaborative audio album and poetry book, weaving personal stories into a shared tapestry of memory, resilience, and Cape Breton spirit. Add your star to this luminous map of community connection.

Lumière Arts Festival 2026 // Metamorphosis

Lumière invites artists to explore transformations, growth, and renewal —across beings, identities, societies, and materials – through the lens of artistic expression. In the chrysalis phase, change is unseen, mysterious, and full of possibilities. Artists are invited to create/present works that examine shifts in personal identity, explore adaptation or environmental cycles and the transformation of objects and materials, highlighting not just beginnings or endings, but the unfolding of the process itself.

The Metamorphosis theme delves into the ongoing process of transformation from one life stage to another. Like renewal processes in nature, change unfolds in phases, some visible, and some hidden. How do we hold space for the unknown phases in between growth and reemergence? How do we honour the process of becoming?

In response to an ever changing world, the festival offers a space to reflect on how we adapt, change, and evolve. The festival is a space for collective transformation and activation of unconventional spaces into interactive and imaginative art installations.

Lumière asks: How does art mirror transformations? What guides us forward through unknown processes of becoming? In the glow of shared experience, we celebrate the beauty of metamorphosis, the mystery of the chrysalis, and the endless possibilities of becoming.

Land Acknowledgement

Lumière Arts Festival, on behalf of the board, the artists, and the communities we represent, acknowledges that we work, live and play in the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, in Unama’ki Cape Breton, who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial.

We are grateful not only for the strong and ongoing stewardship of these lands we call home, but also for the stories, music, and art that Mi’kmaq people continue to create and share, carrying ancestral voices, sacred teachings, and legacies of interconnectedness and resilience forward into the present and on to the future.

We aspire to reflect that sense of connection between past and present in our festival. We are inspired by L’nu artists to foster connection and self-reflection in our work. We will work to ensure that art is accessible, inclusive, and integrated into public spaces so that we can share our collective stories, recognizing the challenges of our past and imagining brighter futures.

We are all Treaty people.