IGNITE Broward 2025: Here’s where to find free interactive art in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Dania Beach

Heading home to Hollywood two years ago, Iryna Kanishcheva and Charles Alan Rye’s truck churned through floodwaters so deep that abandoned cars around them seemed to be floating. Record-breaking rains had battered the artist couple’s low-lying neighborhood, and Kanishcheva felt frightened the deluge would leave them stranded.

“We were so scared,” she recalls. “Thankfully, the truck was tall enough that we made it home safely. But I just had all these questions afterward, like: Will this be permanent? How much will sea level rise impact us going forward? The data was so alarming.”

"Watershed," from Hollywood artists Iryna Kanishcheva and Charles Alan Rye, is one of 27 immersive works at IGNITE Broward, a free, interactive light-and -sound art show running Feb. 14-23. (Iryna Kanishcheva / Courtesy)

Iryna Kanishcheva / Courtesy

“Watershed,” from Hollywood artists Iryna Kanishcheva and Charles Alan Rye, is one of 27 immersive works at IGNITE Broward, a free, interactive light and sound art show. (Iryna Kanishcheva/Courtesy)

That “alarming” encounter inspired Kanishcheva and Rye’s new interactive art installation, “Watershed,” one of 27 light- and sound-based digital artworks set to go on display across the county Feb. 14-23 for the fourth annual IGNITE Broward.

The interactive art show of immersive video displays and light-tripping sculptures will fan out across Fort Lauderdale’s Esplanade Park with eight works and Mad Arts in Dania Beach with 14. New this year, IGNITE has expanded to Arts Park at Young Circle in Hollywood with another five pieces tackling climate change, artificial intelligence and human nature.

“Watershed,” popping up on Fort Lauderdale’s Riverwalk a block east of Esplanade, is an 8-by-10-foot video wall of oceanlike waves that undulate and scatter. As spectators approach the wall, their moving silhouette appears on-screen to jostle the waves — and if they look closer, they’ll see the “waves” are strings of code drawn from real-life environmental data. For example: Sea levels will rise 5 feet by the year 2100. Or that 35% of South Florida’s mangroves have been lost since 1950.

Kanishcheva calls the video wall a “mirror held up to human activity.”

“The video wall reflects back how our human presence is literally shifting the climate,” says Kanishcheva, who programmed art festivals across Orlando and Gainesville before moving to Hollywood. “We wanted it to be as close to the New River as possible so people can create their own ripples in the art, like spreading awareness or supporting climate action.”

Interactive art that challenges visitors — keeping them engaged enough to linger and spend money on nearby businesses — is the whole point of IGNITE, says Broward County Cultural Division director Phillip Dunlap, who cofounded the festival to drive up tourism during winter months.

The festival’s budget has jumped nearly eightfold, from $125,000 in 2021 to $975,000 this year, after the city of Hollywood kicked in $150,000 to spread IGNITE’s footprint south, Dunlap says.

Jim Rassol/Contributor

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David McDougall interacts with artist Francesco Lo Castro’s “Push Power” at Mad Arts in Dania Beach. (Jim Rassol/Contributor)

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Another new feature for 2025: a free shuttle service linking all three IGNITE locations, with daily 6-10 p.m. pickups at South Moffat Avenue in Fort Lauderdale (beside History Fort Lauderdale), the north side of Mad Arts in Dania Beach and the east side of Young Circle in Hollywood, behind the amphitheater.

“We had fewer interactive pieces [in IGNITE] last year, so people didn’t stay around as long,” Dunlap explains. “You need a good mixture of interactivity and to bulk up the [number of] artworks to capture more people. So we’re showcasing more artworks that speak to South Florida and act as conversation starters.”

Artist James Gwertzman assembles "The Prairie of Possibilities" in Esplanade Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. The installation is part of the fifth annual IGNITE Broward, an interactive art show featuring 27 light and sound-based digital artworks. The exhibition runs Feb. 14-23 at Fort Lauderdale's Esplanade Park, Mad Arts in Dania Beach, and ArtsPark at Young Circle in Hollywood. (Jim Rassol/Contributor)

Jim Rassol/Contributor

Artist James Gwertzman assembles “The Prairie of Possibilities” at Esplanade Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (Jim Rassol/Contributor)

IGNITE is even stretching its Fort Lauderdale boundaries beyond Esplanade Park. Artist James Gwertzman’s “The Prairie of Possibilities,” from The Moonlight Collective, comprises hundreds of glowing pieces of fiber-optic sawgrass and prairie grass that follow the Riverwalk from the Broward Center for the Performing Arts east to the FEC tracks.

And in Hollywood, artist Javier Riera’s “A Geometrical Landscape” goes skyward, with jagged geometric shapes projected against the swaying canopies of real trees at Young Circle.

"A Geometrical Landscape," from artist Javier Rivera, will use projection mapping software to cast geometric shapes on trees inside ArtsPark at Young Circle in Hollywood. The artwork is part of IGNITE Broward 2025, running Feb. 14-23. (Javier Rivera / Courtesy)

Javier Riera / Courtesy

“A Geometrical Landscape,” from artist Javier Riera, will use projection mapping software to cast shapes on trees at ArtsPark at Young Circle in Hollywood. (Javier Riera/Courtesy)

Visitors inside the atrium of the Museum of Discovery and Science will wander into Victoria Fard’s immersive piece “Rêverie,” a fantasy wonderland featuring a stately cathedral flanked by lush gardens, including sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines. Using projection mapping software, “Rêverie” has video footage mapped onto a wall, turning buildings and flora into vivid color projections that interact with humans using sensors.

The Toronto-based Fard, who’s half-Filipino and half-Persian, says her immersive “painting” is inspired by exploration and family.

"Rêverie" is artist Victoria Fard's immersive fantasy wonderland depicting lush gardens and a stately cathedral, and can be found in the atrium of Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Discovery & Science as part of IGNITE Broward 2025. (Victoria Fard / Courtesy)

Victoria Fard / Courtesy

“Rêverie,” Victoria Fard’s immersive fantasy wonderland depicting lush gardens and a stately cathedral, can be found in the atrium of Fort Lauderdale’s Museum of Discovery & Science as part of IGNITE Broward 2025. (Victoria Fard/Courtesy)

“When people see it, I want them to be like, ‘Wow,’ ” Fard says. “It draws us in because it’s familiar, but also dreamlike, as if you were in the middle of a calming daydream.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Fourth annual IGNITE Broward

WHEN/WHERE: Feb. 14-23 in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Dania Beach

  • 6-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 6-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday in Fort Lauderdale — at Esplanade Park, 400 SW Second St., and the Museum of Discovery & Science atrium, 401 SW Second St.
  • 6-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 6-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday at ArtsPark at Young Circle, 1 N. Young Circle, Hollywood
  • Noon-10 p.m. daily at MAD Arts, 481 S. Federal Highway, Dania Beach

COST: Free

EXHIBIT MAPS: Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Dania Beach

INFORMATION: IGNITEBroward.com

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