Light art: By the River Lethe (2022)
Lighting designers: Ana Nichita, Dagmar Milthers
Location: Gammel strand 26, Copenhagen, Denmark
Collaborators: Ungt Lys, Copenhagen Light Festival, Matrikel1 cafe&bar
Project Year: 2022
About Ungt Lys
Ungt Lys is an association that engages young and aspiring lighting design talents in Denmark, a community across educational institutions and areas of interest. Every year, the association holds a number of workshops and events that focus on practical learning and sharing the latest knowledge within the lighting industry.
About the workshop
The 4 light artworks have come into being in less than two weeks and could have been experienced in the windows of a cafe bar in inner city. The works were created through a design sprint: a rapid experimental development process that aims to challenge familiar creative ways of thinking and forms of collaboration. This sprint started with a draw of selected words, materials and concepts related to light, giving each group a framework to work from and be inspired by. The result is four very different site-specific works, each of which examines the ability of light to fascinate and amaze us.
About 'By the River Lethe' light installation
Words: glare, mystery, after image, paper
‘By the River Lethe’ installation provides an inconspicuous window into the bar space. Its movement is reminiscent of the flow of the river Lethe, which was flowing through the cave of Hypnos, where its murmuring would induce drowsiness and forgetfulness.
The transitional space deals with short-lived experience and temporary sensation. The passing by-ers cannot touch it, cannot decipher its mysterious make-up, but they get anesthetized by its slow movement and glow.
It is both a transitory space and an extension of the space behind it – the bar. It is characterized as temporary and not a fixed or tangible entity persisting in the world.
