2026 Year of the Horse
Lantern Stories
šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énk Square
North of the Vancouver Art Gallery
The Orange Swing
& Illusion
Golnaz Kiany
In her recent series, Silent Generation, Kiany explores feelings of nostalgia in relation to the layered realities of contemporary life. Often incorporating self-representations situated within familiar childhood environments, her paintings evoke a tension between a longing for the past and a desire to reimagine the future. By drawing on the joy, simplicity, and energy of childhood, Kiany proposes a way of moving through adulthood that embraces memory as a source of renewal rather than retreat.
Within the paintings, familiar scenes unfold: a vivid orange swing recedes into the background as a girl runs freely in the foreground, brimming with carefree energy; in another, a bright yellow Ferris wheel rises behind three joyful adult figures who leap and play beneath a clear sky. Kiany reimagines these subjects through the carefree rhythms and emotional textures of her early memories, allowing joy and movement to surface—reclaiming the fearless vitality of childhood as a way of facing uncertainty with resilience
and hope.
The Lunar New Year—marking the Year of the Horse and the theme Brave the Wind—resonates deeply with this sense of momentum and transformation. The horse symbolizes courage, speed, and a bold charge into the unknown—qualities echoed in the running girl and leaping figures that populate Kiany’s paintings.
In this Lantern City installation, Kiany invites viewers to pause amid the glowing lanterns and carry forward a spark of the same playful, brave energy into the new year.
Study of Little Prince and His Little Planet III & IV
Mohsen Khalili
The works presented at Lantern City for LunarFest belong to a series entitled Planets Visited by the Little Prince (2013–2019). Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s celebrated novella The Little Prince, this work explores themes of loneliness, the joy and burden of creativity, and the longing for understanding and connection.
Vespertine &
Daffodils at Night
Homa Khosravi
In this body of work, I am investigating nighttime scenes and landscapes, offering an alternative reading of nature and the unknown. Beyond the ornamental elements and soft colours, the work presents a space of reflection on mortality and decay; formulating a space for the viewer to find the line between reality and dream under layers of forms and colours. The tangled branches act as both barriers and pathways, enclosing luminous, otherworldly flowers and creatures that embodies resilience, mystery, and transformation. Through my paintings, I explore the tension between beauty and obstruction, hope that is growing in the middle of the dark and cold winter.
As an Iranian artist, the Lunar New Year resonates with me through its shared celebration of spring, rebirth, and gathering—values that closely mirror our own traditions of Nowruz. Both cultures welcome the new year through cleansing, renewal, honouring the past, and embracing hope for what is coming. It is a meaningful reminder of how deeply we are all connected regardless of our culture, all gravitating toward the same impulses: building community, sharing love, and celebrating together.
Whispering & A Gap Across the Fears
Hadis Vahidi
As an Iranian-Canadian artist, my relationship to Lunar New Year is rooted in renewal, not as rupture, but as transformation. It is a way of moving forward that does not deny what came before. In my practice, surfaces hold memory, marks linger, fragments resurface, and emotional residue remains embedded. These traces are not imperfections to be removed, they are evidence of passage. Nothing in the work is erased. Everything is carried, altered, and allowed
to evolve.
This sensibility echoes how traditions survive across time and geography. When cultures travel, they do not arrive untouched. They stretch, adapt, and take on new forms, yet their core persists. Lunar New Year embodies this continuity, a cyclical return that honours history while making room for change.
For me, the Lunar New Year is more than a celebration or spectacle. It is a threshold. A suspended moment between endings and beginnings, where reflection is as important as intention. It is a breath taken in awareness of weight and inheritance, a quiet, deliberate resolve to begin again, not by shedding the past, but by carrying it forward with care.
Ocean Artworks
Granville Island
The Shape of a Wish
Arts Umbrella
The Shape of a Wish was produced through a three-part workshop series led by Arts Umbrella in partnership with Health Arts Society that brought together seniors and children to consider their wishes for the Lunar New Year. Led by Arts Umbrella Instructor, Yan Song, seniors from S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and Ray-Cam Cooperative worked alongside Grade 4/5 students from Crosstown Elementary to combine watercolour and paper-cutting techniques to create colourful washes, patterns, and shapes that symbolize their wish for the new year.
Past to Future
Studio 101
Depicts herds traversing clouds, overcoming mountains, and bringing courage and resistance, as well as stories, as they run towards the sunrise, which represents hope and a new beginning. The background shift from a scene reminiscent of an ancient shan shui painting to an aerial shot of Metro Vancouver symbolizes that the journey is ongoing and transcends borders.
Wild Symphony
Arty Guava
This artwork celebrates the spirit of the 2026 Year of the Horse. At the horizon, a pair of horses gallop freely across rolling mountains, symbolising strength, partnership, and fearless movement. Their forward momentum embodies courage in motion—the will to move ahead despite resistance.
In the foreground, a tiger and a snake emerge from lush foliage, representing instinct, intuition, and inner power. In the Chinese zodiac, each animal does not exist in isolation but in relation to others. Together, they form a living constellation of energies—courage, grace, and wisdom—intertwined within nature’s grand rhythm and reminding us that balance comes from the coexistence of different strengths.
Lunar New Year, for me, represents renewal and fresh beginnings. It feels like opening a new book and turning the first page with intention, putting one’s best foot forward. It is a time of gratitude, shared prosperity, and abundance, expressed through the giving of red packets and the spirit of generosity. Most of all, it is a time to be close to family—bonding over food that carries our cultural identity, memories, and traditions. This artwork reflects that sense of movement, connection, and hope as we step together into a new cycle.
7Horses
Danvic Briones
This mixed-media artwork, “7Horses,” pulsates with the energy and momentum critical to both my culture and personal journey. Its subject anticipates the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse, symbolizing speed, success, and freedom. The dynamic composition and fiery palette of reds, oranges and golds, embody the relentless drive associated with the Horse sign.
Through my migration in Canada, the segmented stained-glass aesthetic reflects the complex experience of building a new life. Like a mosaic, the colours and fragments piece together diverse memories and cultural influences, demanding courage and strength. The horses’ unyielding motion speaks to the sheer passion and commitment required to overcome challenges and achieve successful resettlement in a new homeland, making the piece a striking ode to perseverance and new beginnings.
Bentall Centre
Forward (1)
Jag Nagra
Inspired by my culture and lived experience, my lanterns reflect the South Asian community’s determination to withstand racism, societal pressure, and institutional barriers while continuing to move forward with resilience and dignity. This diptych responds to LunarFest’s theme “Brave the Wind” by exploring what it means to confront turbulence head-on, individually and collectively.
In the first piece of this diptych, a winged horse rises against storm clouds and treacherous waves, its wings spread wide and front legs lifted in defiance. Arrows shoot by which act as symbols of hostility and exclusion, as the horse evades them with strength and agility. Above it, an eye releasing lightning captures the weight of prejudice and scrutiny directed toward South Asians. In recent years, anti-South Asian rhetoric has grown louder across the country, placing communities—particularly international students—in harm’s way and under increasing judgment. This artwork is meant to represent the strength to continue pushing forward and carving out a space for belonging.
Forward (2)
Jag Nagra
The second piece offers a counterpoint. A repeating pattern of horses forms a phulkari-inspired composition, referencing traditional Punjabi embroidery patterns. The placement of the horses transforms individual strength into collective resilience, emphasizing the power of coming together rather than fragmenting under external forces.
For me, Lunar New Year is a powerful reminder that in a city like Vancouver, there is space for all cultures and traditions to be honoured. We are a society made stronger by its diversity, and embracing the richness of different cultures and celebrations allows us to build connections and a shared sense of belonging.
LMFAO GUYS THAT WASN'T ME
Miles Saraswat
I’ve been thinking a lot about new beginnings in the form of movement. I’ve seen this movement manifest itself through moments of migration, transition, and shifts within environment. I’m interested in working through these in flux experiences through the metaphor of spiritual reincarnation, viewing self-identity before and after these moments as a rebirth.
In LMFAO GUYS THAT WASN’T ME, I reflect on the multiple versions of self that exist, either through social performance or digital personas. This piece attempts to visualize the chaos of creating altered versions of self in similarity to spiritualistic ideas of rebirth. How many times have I “reincarnated” to move through social relations, whether it be through transition or through conflict? As I move back and forth between these visions of self created, I continuously move through cycles of rebirth, reimagination, and restitution. In an automatic approach to visualizing these cycles, the painting works through the complex emotions of starting new, in infinite cycles.
YOU FEED ME, I EAT AS YOU
Miles Saraswat
Moving into the year of the horse, I’ve been thinking about new beginnings and how to battle the instability of movement through the metaphor of reincarnation, viewing the self as multiple versions that differ from each other after moments of change. This is what I view as the starburst, and is represented through the large pockets of colour in my paintings.
In YOU FEED ME, I EAT AS YOU, I work through stories of sacrifice in the context of reincarnation. In South-Asian spiritualism, sacrifice comes up as a device of devotion to ensure the next reincarnation cycle is better than the previous. Reflecting on my mother’s immigration and sacrifices for myself and my family, I use gestural movements to visualize this sacrifice and rebirth, passing physical and emotional terrains in search of opportunity and a second (or multiple) chance.
Continuing to learn from the knowledge of the past generations, I’d like to celebrate the new year as an embrace of hope through change, in the metaphorical form of a reincarnation.
Cinnabar & Lapis Lazuli
Anu Chouhan
These figures represent beauty, strength, and balance. They are a rejection of subservience, and encourage a desire to be bold and courageous. This includes asserting our boundaries, speaking out against injustice, and standing up for those who need help. In these ways, these two figures act as guardians who Brave the Wind in the new year.
800 Robson Plaza
Luminescent Growth
Anaïs Lera
This illustration celebrates the upcoming Chinese New Year, honouring the dynamic spirit of the Fire Horse. Known for its passion, creativity, and bold determination, the Fire Horse represents a year driven by vibrant energy and forward momentum.
At the center of the artwork, the horse embodies this bright, fiery energy. Surrounding it, the flowers symbolize growth, renewal, and the unfolding of new possibilities in the year ahead. Some blossoms hold gemstones at their core, suggesting hidden treasures, inner strength, and potential waiting to be revealed.
The use of vivid, glowing colours reinforces the intensity and warmth associated with the Fire Horse. Through this lively palette and the harmony between the horse and its floral environment, the illustration invites viewers to welcome a year filled with courage, creativity, and forward-moving energy.
Ember
H. Kristen Campbell
“Ember” was created with an intention to illustrate a brave entrance into a new year, and new space that we cannot quite see yet. What the Lunar New Year represents for me is a time to reflect upon myself, my qualities and what I want to build towards in the future. With the year of the fire horse approaching, I wanted to capture the brightness and boldness of the element of fire, as even a small ember can cut through the darkness around it.
spring recursion
ivyteas
The lunar new year is a time when the cycle of seasons’ change feels most momentous, at the boundary between the chilly landscape and the first tentative shoots of spring. After months of winter chill and our days lengthen once more, it’s a time for the past oft-buried to emerge again in renewed tradition, and celebrate our hopes for the coming year through delicious food with friends and family.
Across human history, horses have served as means of transportation, animal companions, and inspired the human literary and visual imagination. In current-day urban settings such as Vancouver, horses no longer hold the same function in long-distance transportation or labour, mirroring ‘tradition’ as symbolic of a bygone pre-industrial era. But they continue to toil and exist out of sight.
My lantern art is an exploration of the horse within the cultural imagination, inspired by porcelain work, shadow puppetry, and inkwash paintings, and playing on the ways in which light alternately permeates, backlights, and reflects off these surfaces. It is also an expression of joy for the horse’s resilience as a creature of the world. Through history, the horse traverses immense distances, and endures the coldness of winters with that promise of spring.
The seamless lantern shape helps create a setting where living beings and the natural world are suspended in the cycle of the zodiac and within the circular scene itself. Though the central horse figure still has the trappings of bridle & saddle, confined within the borders of the image, it exists as part of the landscape, with wind in mane and tail turning to river.
The bottom of this piece is a small homage to Muybridge’s horse in motion, the earliest captured sequence of its run cycle. Before, the horse’s movements were so fluid that the placement of the horse’s limbs in motion was nebulous, a matter of debate, until its run was suspended in a series of photographs. Nowadays, many of us carry in our pockets phones with powerful cameras that can crystallise a scene in an instant: every moment offered up for examination, easily dissected and broken down for study.
But how to truly comprehend a horse? It exists somewhere beyond these photos of its movement, recordings of its hoofbeats, and observations with our slow human eyes. Likewise, our understanding of tradition might easily be taken from any given moment in time, but the undercurrents run so deeply that they exist beyond any simple frame of representation. While this illustration is itself static, I hope it can convey the space that the zodiac horse occupies within the steady turn of the lunar cycle.
Celestial Playground
Jacqueline Li
Durong Paksin
Lanna Souvanny
Durong Paksin is a majestic Lao mythological creature that resembles the Greek winged horse, Pegasus. In the background, we see the Naga, from my past Snake year illustration, departing for the year of the Horse to come. I chose to depict Durong Paksin in red and yellow, two bright and warm colours that represent the Lunar New Year to me. A festive celebration of the new year brought by the elegance and the strength of the Horse.
Cosmic Glimmer
Lily Tulett
To me, Lunar New Year is typically the time where I get to celebrate my friends’ traditions and cultures by spending time together and sharing all kinds of delicacies. While both my cultures celebrate the new year on the first of January, ever since I moved to Canada by myself almost a decade ago, I’ve had such wonderful experiences with my friends here who celebrate Lunar New Year and get excited about sharing it with others. I always feel very welcome and cared for during this time of year because I can spend time with my chosen family, bond over delicious and home-cooked feasts, and feel so much love and togetherness from a wide variety of people!
With this piece, I wanted to express that emotion of finding love, happiness, friends, family, really anything that brings you joy, in a time where so much uncertainty surrounds us. With 2026 being the year of the fire horse, the horse in this piece represents the firepower within all of us to keep on trying, improving, and growing, despite what life may throw at us. And through all this ambiguity, our passion and ‘spark’ will always remain a constant in our lives to help guide us towards a better and brighter future. To be in the same space as all those things that bring us joy, no matter how big or small, and make us feel very grateful that even when times are tough and the road to our future seems dim, we still have that firepower within us all to keep going and shine brighter than ever.
Move as One
Mustaali Raj
Move as One reimagines the spirit of the horse as a creature of endurance, movement, and freedom translated into pattern and geometry. The artwork features interlocking horse forms where steps, pixels, and symmetry evoke rhythm and momentum. The repeated horses appear in motion yet in balance, embodying the courage to move forward together through turbulence.
Growing up, I was always fascinated by the animals of the Lunar New Year and how each carried meaning, shaping the passage of time through their stories. For me, the Lunar New Year remains a moment of renewal and reflection, a time to honour cycles of change and strength found in community.
The overall composition draws from textile traditions and digital architectures, merging ancient and contemporary forms of storytelling. Each horse becomes a vessel of collective strength in the face of uncertainty. Move as One reminds us that courage is not solitary; it is shared, patterned through the connections we hold with one another.
Riding the Wind With Mother Earth
Phyllis Poitras-Jarrett
As a Métis woman and artist, I’ve always felt the horses running through my blood. My wild horse spirit art is an expression of my Métis heritage, capturing the flowing manes and powerful movements that mirror our journey as Métis people.
The 2026 Lunar Year of the Horse embodies energy, independence, and the strength to brave challenges. These were all qualities our ancestors needed as they built communities across the windy prairies. The horse runs with its eyes focused forward and despite the wind it continues on with resilience and determination.
Our Métis people have always stood strong against the winds of oppression and cultural erasure. My horses face into the wind, just as Métis people have faced challenges with dignity and unwavering spirit.
Lantern City’s 2026 celebration of the Year of the Horse with its beautiful giant illuminated lanterns are an expression of every artist’s role as cultural light-bearers. The wind’s challenge and the horse’s response, that powerful stance of facing forward with courage that defines us as Métis people. The Year of the Horse carries our stories forward, braving whatever winds may come.
Brave the Winds
Sharon Leung
Brave the Winds depicts seven cloud-like horses racing across a sky of yellow, pink, purple, and blue as ribbons of wind and light sweep past them. Drawing from the traditional Chinese motif of “seven horses,” the work symbolizes momentum, protection, and courage in turbulent times. The horses appear partially formed from cloud and light, suggesting resilience that is fluid rather than rigid. By placing these mythical figures in a dreamlike, shifting sky, the piece reflects the 2026 theme “Brave the Wind”: moving forward with grace in uncertainty, trusting that hope can carry us even when the path is not fully visible.
8 Winds
ura jones
8 Winds is a work created in celebration of Lunar New Year and the Year of the Horse – a time associated with movement, vitality and forward momentum. The title refers to the 8 winds that call upon us to renew and evolve, to face the challenges ahead with strength of character and integrity. The winds are both literal and symbolic: unseen forces that shape our direction, growth and collective future.
On a personal level, this work is deeply meaningful. As an immigrant to Canada with French, Indian, and Celtic influences, I feel a profound connection to the history of lantern festivals and their symbolism of illumination, and prosperity. Lanterns have long marked moments of transition—between darkness and light, endings and beginnings, solitude and celebration. To contribute to this tradition through a public artwork is both an honour and an expression of gratitude.
At the heart of my design is the horse – she is strong, playful, bold yet intuitive. She is guided by the 8 winds that move around and through her. The horse has always symbolized our living history, across all cultures. She embodies continuity, from a distant past to a dynamic future. As a Lunar New Year symbol she represents perseverance and the ability to carry both memory and hope forward.
Embedded within the background of the artwork are the 8 guiding words associated with the Year of the Horse. Translated into several languages, they reflect our cultural diversity, and the shared values that connect humanity across borders. Language in this artwork, represents a unifying force; within communication lies equality, empathy and the possibility of deeper human connection. Words to live and love by.
Pendulum Gallery
On the Road
Zhou Jian-xin
Is courage a form of maternal energy?
Is farewell the language of reincarnation?
Is storytelling a technique for preserving eternal memory?
ON THE ROAD features the work of Taiwanese illustrator and comic artist Zhou Jian-xin. Through three of his picture books, we explore the answers to these questions. The exhibition showcases the artist’s stylistic range. Each art style reflects a nostalgic and hopeful way of looking at life, which both adults and children can enjoy.
The acclaimed artist often teams up with writer Yang Fu-min to create picture books. The two of them share a connection—both are from Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan. This exhibition features two of their collaborations, in which they examine family relations, growing up, and the warmth of a mother’s love. All these stories are rooted in their deep fondness for the city of their childhood.
Great-Grandma’s Daily Calendar
– Text by Yang Fu-min, Illustration by Zhou Jian-xin
– Special Thanks to Linking Publishing @linking.thinking
Mom and Her Motorcycle
– Text by Yang Fu-min, Illustration by Zhou Jian-xin
The Little Squirrel and the Banyan Tree
– Text & Illustration by Zhou Jian-xin
The Lantern City is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation). We acknowledge our privilege to be gathered on this land, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples whose arts and stories inspire us to bring communities together.
