The Vancouver Art Gallery will be cloaked in colourful designs this week as the Façade Festival returns for another year.

Every evening from Sept. 8 to 14, different artists will be projecting their work onto the Georgia Street side of the gallery, lighting up the building's iconic architecture with specially designed artwork and animations.

Organizers at the Burrard Arts Foundation said the eye-grabbing effect is made possible through a process called projection mapping, which allows artists to turn a three-dimensional object into a dynamic canvas.

"Facade Festival speaks to the pervasiveness of digital forms in modern life and contemplates the role that new technologies play in contemporary art while engaging the public in a grand architectural intervention," BAF curator Kate Bellringer said in a statement.

Eleven artists are taking part in this year's festival, which will be closing with a special projection-mapped film called "Ocean Ghosts" that explores the impact of plastic pollution on marine life.

Organizers expect tens of thousands of onlookers to take in the sights during the course of the week. The artwork will be projected every night from sundown to midnight.