(FRENCHTOWN, NJ) -- A free nighttime festival featuring music, art, performance, and a sea of illuminated aquatic creatures, ArtYard's Aqualumina returns to Frenchtown for the third time at dusk on Saturday, May 9, 2026.
“Aqualumina invites us into a shared act of wonder,” said Jill Kearney, ArtYard Founder and Executive Director. “As we move together along the river at night, carrying light, making music, and witnessing beguiling performances, we celebrate water as an essential force that connects communities and reminds us of our shared responsibility to care for it.”
Aqualumina is an opportunity to celebrate our perch along the Delaware River and the interconnected beauty of the world’s rivers, oceans, coral reefs, icebergs, and rain systems. All are welcome to attend in their aquatic finest and join the festival’s lantern parade, featuring hundreds of community members donning handmade rain cloud hats, iceberg fascinators, or shibori-dyed river suits and carrying illuminated jellyfish parasols and fish lanterns.
Like ArtYard’s Hatch Festival, Aqualumina is held every other spring and brings the organization’s mission to life by inviting people not just to experience art, but to make it together. In the months leading up to the festival, participants of all ages take part in hands-on workshops to craft aquatic lanterns, costumes, and large-scale puppets. Since its debut in 2021, when a site-specific acrobatic dance performance by Brian Sanders’ JUNK illuminated refugee stories along the river, Aqualumina has evolved into an interdisciplinary celebration of water's elemental power as both a necessity and a delicate, vital resource.
This year’s Aqualumina features performances by waterglass artist Cindertalk; steel drumming by Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra, choral music by Vermont-based FarmSong, New York-based Supruli Ensemble, and Hunterdon County-based NJWomensong, dance performances by Kalyan Sayre and Michael Sazonov’s Movement Lab, and a trio of illuminated sculptures by Elsa Mora.
Festival-goers are encouraged to arrive early and allow plenty of time to park and make their way to Sunbeam Lenape Park, where check-in starts at 7:00pm. Ahead of the lantern parade, which begins promptly at 8:00pm, festival-goers will learn a song to be sung at the event’s finale. Some attendees will receive water whistles to sound at certain points during the procession.
Led by ArtYard’s surrey, illuminated schools of sea creatures and revelers will set off from the park along the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park Trail at the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge. The procession proceeds past ArtYard Center, makes a brief departure from the trail onto the lawn at ArtYard’s Creekside Residency, returns to the trail, turns onto Washington Street, and then proceeds on River Road back to Sunbeam Lenape Park, where a final performance and communal song will occur. The event is set to end by 10:00pm.
The Festival’s performances are designed to be experienced during the procession, with festival-goers continuously moving as they pass singers, musicians, and dancers. Joining the Aqualumina procession involves walking in low-light conditions on uneven terrain. Spectators are welcome at Sunbeam Lenape Park and along public benches on the rail trail.
Volunteers will be stationed at regular intervals to guide the procession and provide additional lighting where needed. A first aid station and portable bathrooms will be located on the lawn next to FiNNBAR on Bridge Street. An additional portable bathroom is located on River Road along the procession route. In addition to street parking and restaurant parking for patrons, there are public lots on Routes 12 and 513.
Festival partners include visual artists Sandra Dillon, Eric Fiorito, Laura Heit, Rebecca Kelly, Kate Lambdin, Ginny Perry, Kristen Spencer, David Weinhold, and Summer Yates, as well as coLAB Arts, Frenchtown Elementary School, Frenchtown Borough, Frenchtown Business & Professional Association, Frenchtown Police, Lambertville Library, Mudtown Ceramics, the Milford-Holland EMTs, and Studio Route 29.
The event will take place rain or shine, with postponement on Sunday, May 10 in the case of severe weather.
ArtYard’s galleries will be open regular hours on Saturday and Sunday from 11:00am to 5:00pm. Admission is free.
ArtYard is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts center dedicated to presenting transformative artwork, fostering unexpected collaborations, and incubating original new work. Situated in the heart of Frenchtown, New Jersey, ArtYard encompasses exhibition spaces, a theater, artist residencies, and community programs designed to engage artists and audiences alike. Admission to gallery exhibitions is free, ensuring accessibility and openness as fundamental elements of ArtYard’s mission.
