Lantern Festival celebration illuminates metaverse

Lantern Festival in Metaverse, a program developed by the China Cultural Center in Copenhagen, was launched on Feb 4, the eve of the Chinese festival.

30 guests from Denmark and beyond, all participating in their virtual avatars, attended the launch ceremony in the metaverse venue, to join the Lantern Festival celebrations.

The metaverse space, centered around the theme of A Celebration for Nature, Family, and the World, showcases more than 60 artworks including medias like paper-cutting, photography, animation, music, and video, giving visitors an immersive experience of the Spring Festival culture. In addition, a section of the cyber-space is titled “Celebration under Lantern and Light”, which is decorated with Chinese lanterns of various shapes, photographs of Lantern Festival celebrations and digital artworks of different forms of light instillations from around the world.

Center director Zheng Wen welcomed all guests, introduced culture surrounding the Spring Festival and said the center will keep expanding the new space to share Chinese culture with the public around the world. A huge gongdeng (palace lantern) ascended in the center of the metaverse space as soon as the director announced the launch of the program.

More than 500 people had visited the space as of Feb 5, with many leaving comments to praise its rich content.

As part of the 2023 “Happy Chinese New Year” global celebrations, sponsored by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the metaverse space will remain open to the public after the festival.