About The Lantern City Project
The City Where Diversity Shines
Vancouver is a young city.
Her youth is exhibited in nature, always refreshing and vibrant.
Her youth is displayed by the people, always curious and imaginative.
Her youth is celebrated by the movements, always progressive and provocative.
Lanterns are an art form long in existence.
It functions as a light.
It serves as an inspiration.
It is also known as a celebration.
Vancouver is the Lantern City.
A city that never forgets its origins.
A city that sees no boundaries.
A city that embraces possibilities.
It’s all about the beginning of
the land, the people and our future.
2027 Artistic Direction
Year of the Goat
Rising Together
Rising Together builds on the festival’s artistic trajectory of connecting communities through shared creativity. Centered on a Lunar New Year Concert at the Vancouver Playhouse, the 2027 edition brings together music, dance, and community storytelling to reflect on shared stories of resilience and identity among diaspora families in British Columbia. Workshops, performances, and exhibitions will focus on community-informed artistry, reflecting lived experiences from Vancouver’s diaspora communities.
How do families navigate between tradition and transformation? How can music and movement express the act of rising above social and cultural barriers? This year’s programming is curated with the idea of “collective ascent” — gathering together stories of heritage and renewal, while preserving the distinctiveness of cultural voices.
LunarFest continues to expand the role of the arts in shaping Vancouver’s civic identity. In celebrating the city’s diversity, the festival hopes to foster a community where culture is understood as shared growth, where different voices rise together to define what it means to belong in a truly intercultural city.
Through music and light, Rising Together extends the legacy of LunarFest and The Lantern City as platforms for cultural dialogue that move beyond tokenism. This February, the festival encourages audiences to reimagine multiculturalism as collaboration: where cultural identities rise together toward understanding and empathy.
Asian-Canadian Special Events Association
Founded in March 2004, Asian-Canadian Special Events Association (ACSEA) continues to create sustainable projects in the areas of arts and culture, working with partners across British Columbia, Canada, and internationally following a threefold mandate:
1. Community Engagement – to identify and explore opportunities with organizations and communities to encourage cultural exchange and showcase their celebrated diversity.
2. Fostering New Artistic and Cultural Expressions – Foster new expressions that reflect the unique and vibrant nature of Canada’s diverse population and encourage innovative approaches to artistic and cultural presentations.
3. Platform to Learn and Share – Provide a sufficient platform where traditions of all cultures are presented and celebrated, completing the process of cultural exchange.
ACSEA has a long history of curating and producing large events, including a very successful partnership with Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Cultural Olympiad.
ACSEA’s signature events are spread throughout the year: LunarFest and the Lantern City in the winter, and TAIWANfest Vancouver in the summer.
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.
