During a workshop in Columbia University’s Miller Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 18, participants and staff shape the foundation wireframe of the lanterns for the 11th annual Morningside Lights, a free annual event where members of the public make lanterns for an outdoor procession in Morningside Heights. This year marks the first in-person workshops and procession since 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Launched in 2012, Morningside Lights is conceptualized by art directors Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles and is produced by Columbia University's Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre. Voluntary arts & crafts are often “infantilized,” says Kahn. Initiatives like Morningside Lights facilitate community participation in the arts for different age groups.

This year’s theme ‘The Reimagined Monument’ asks participants to make a lantern of an object that speaks to their past, present or future. Kahn (center) gives feedback to Christine Suh (left), 23, a researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Eric Chang (right), 23, a robotics student at Columbia University, on Suh’s sketch of their chosen monument: the James Webb Space Telescope.

Lana Wang, 28, a data analyst, signed up for the first time this year to make a phoenix honoring Chinese-American heritage. “Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, my lantern symbolizes how my community will rise above,” Wang says. Anti-Asian-American sentiment increased during the pandemic, with 1 in 5 Asian-Americans experiencing a hate incident in 2020 or 2021, according to Stop AAPI Hate data.

Hand-making lanterns is a progressive art form that involves covering the wireframe sculptures with layers of papier mache, cheesecloth, and tissue. Ahead of the procession on Saturday, Sept. 24, Wang will commute from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Miller Theatre in Morningside Heights, from Sunday to Friday, and spend thirty hours across seven workshops to complete her lantern.

The procession begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24, at the W116th St. entrance of Morningside Park. Families and individuals join along the one-mile planned route to Columbia University’s main campus.

Wang wrote ‘perseverance’ in English on one side of her lantern’s pedestal and in Chinese script on the other. “I grew up in Nebraska. Being Chinese-American wasn’t an identity I always knew how to vocalize,” says Wang.

Morningside Lights attendees and Columbia University community members congregate and clap for the participants showcasing their lanterns for the final time, across from Butler Library at 9 p.m. The lanterns are dropped off at Miller Theatre around the corner, where members of the public can sign up to adopt them on Monday, Sept. 26.