Neon eye image by Chila Singh Burman
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There are exhibitions that grab you so thoroughly that you’ve forgotten what you’ve seen by the time you get outside . . . and there are those that wake you up in the middle of the night TWO DAYS LATER.
I’m putting COLLECTED LIGHT into that category.
.It is altogether a strange and wonderful show, housed in the Soshiro Gallery, possibly the most discreet gallery in the world, and looking for all the world like its someone’s best-kept secret. We talk a lot in these crazy days of ‘disappearing down the rabbit hole’ – a nod to Alice in Wonderland, of course, and walking into the Soshiro gallery earlier this week had a lot of Watership Down about it.
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Why so?
Art is a distillation of the human experience (Art is Life; Life is Art – that old trope). Usually, we apply Light as the medium to get the Art out of the world and into our minds; then we leave it to our brain to engage with whatever the artist wants us to see. It works most of the time.
Light artists see things rather differently. Light is not only their medium of communication – it’s the artistic medium itself. And we’re not always informed by the artist as to what we’re meant to ‘see’. Sometimes its up to us. Welcome to COLLECTED LIGHT.
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I suggest that you visit COLLECTED LIGHT by yourself, or go with someone but don’t stay joined at the hip to them. This is a solo journey. To help describe what it is that I’m talking about, I’m concentrating on three of the pieces:
Halo by Karolina Halatek
The opening sequence for the show is, essentially, a white room, fille with white smoke. Halatek talks about ‘near death experiences’ and that bright white light at the end of the tunnel (life itself).
You’re invited to stand in the centre of a light halo – and wait . . .
Once your brain stops trying to interpret what it’s not seeing your subconscious kicks in, though still trying to make sense of your surroundings. The tabula rasa that you’re standing within becomes the canvas onto which all the memories of your life can come through (if white contains all of the colours, then its just a few more steps for those colours to take shape and project your own story – don’t you think)
Just to remind you – you’ve only just arrived. This is the first thing you experience here.
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Stardust – The Deep Field by Lauren Baker
Art exhibitions are often social events; you go along with a friend, stand in front of whatever it is and share your thoughts. But Halatek’s Halo has already opened up your doors of perception into a personal world. Baker simply reinforces that feeling of isolation.
With Stardust, it’s impossible for two people, even standing side by side, to see the same image. Lenses within the structure of the piece alter the image, depending on where you’re standing. You can only share the experience of your own experience – you cannot point at something and say – “will you look at that”.
Disturbing – unsettling.
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Off Grid series by Jacqueline Hen
But not as disturbing as Hen’s Off Grid, which is the one that woke me up in the middle of the night.
OK – its an infinity mirror. And, because it’s a mirror, it’s natural to stand in front of it and have a good gurn (as many LinkedIn posts demonstrate). This is not really the point – at least, it’s not the point as far as I can gurn.
Stand to one side, and what do you see? The piece has the size and proportion of a doorway. The illuminated wire grid disappears into the space on the other side of the opening. It’s a doorway opening into something that doesn’t exist in our dimension.
Like the Subtle Knife in Pullman’s Dark Materials, there is the thought that this Off Grid really could take you off-grid.
What spooked me in the middle of the night was being jolted awake by the realisation that openings can work both ways – and if we can move through the opening, then others might make the journey from the other side. My mother always told me not to get involved in this stuff . . .
I felt obliged, while standing in the room with this potential trans-dimensional portal, to tap my fingernail on the glass screen . . . just to make sure that there really was a screen there. If there hadn’t been a screen, I don’t think I’d be writing this now.
Certainly, the most Gothick experiences that I’ve had in a long time.
That’s my three main events, but I’ll also mention Chila Singh Burman’s Peacock. This finely-crafted neon light image became a sanity-saver at the end of the show; a glorious touchstone of visual exuberance. I’m not suggesting that this is in anyway a similar situation, but I saw The Exorcist on its release in 1973 and was so disturbed by it that I took myself to see Disney’s cartoon Robin Hood a couple of days later. Having received an overabundance of existential what-the-hellery at COLLECTED LIGHT, Chila’s Peacock was an excellent grounding for me
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COLLECTED LIGHT is curated by Light Collective and is part of a bigger initiative celebrating Women Light Artists. Martin and Sharon have published a book ‘Women Light Artists’ and I love their joyful chutzpah that this is merely COLLECTED LIGHT VOLUME 1. We’re all looking forward to seeing more of this amazing iceberg that is mostly-unseen women’s light art.
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Finally, a mention for formalighting, sponsors of the event and long-time supporters of Women n Lighting. Providing intriguing visual intermezzi to the main pieces were occasional light settings designed and installed by the company. If COLLECTED LIGHT was ever to become a travelling theatre troupe, formalighting would be the guys entertaining the audiences in between performances – rarely receiving their due applause, but vital to the quality of the whole performance.
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