Lots of Light Art and One Difficult Question

Nobel Week Lights is a light art festival scattered around Stockholm with a curatorial base in connection to Nobel prizes. It’s organised around December 8th and I visited it last year. The area covered by light art is quite large and I recommend more than one night for visiting the festival. Take your time for rest of the city and its galleries as well, for Stockholm is one nice city!

I t was also nice seeing students' artworks!
No blunders blunders by Constance Michnik Frederiksson

A Difficult Question to Start with 

I had a most interesting discussion about light art festivals and their diversity (or lack thereof) with one of the Nobel Week Lights curators, Lara Szabo Greisman from Troika. She asked me if I could name one artwork in the festival, that would best grasp the idea of Nobel Week Lights. In that hasty moment, I couldn’t, and the conversation galloped on, but the question kept puzzling me. 

Later on I realised there wasn’t one artwork that would be the icon of the whole festival for me. Rather, it would be the theme. Relating every artwork to Nobel prize winners gave me a specific, otherwise not-though-of way to view them. It connected the miscellaneous group of artworks into a solid whole. The theme was strict enough to give the festival a certain spirit but solute enough to choose variant artworks. That, I think, is genius!

A Non-Answer to the Original Question

Choosing one artwork representing the whole festival proved to be impossible but choosing one closest to the Nobel prize history would have been an easy task. 

Heroes by Smash Studios is basically a documentary about Raoul Wallenberg and Dag Hammarskjöld, in a projection mapping form. Stylishly accomplished, heartfelt and informative, on emotional and conscious level. A good competitor was Kroft & Smids’s Nobel Light Walk, a route of quotes of Nobel Prize winners, projected on unexpected surfaces. This, I think, would be a good starting point for a whole new light-literature festival! And of course, there is the large-scale projection mapping Conscience by Ateliers Bk, that really rubs the Nobel medal in our faces, with some sparkles, fluttery fabric, and a Phoenix bird, as is trendy in mapping these days.

"We remember" – I sure hope everyone does

Text and the City

Exploding / sparkling Nobel prize

Light Art Moving People

It’s nice to hear people scream, even if it’s just for joy. The seesaw called Wave-Field, by CS Design, Lateral Office and Mitchell Akiyama appealed to kids and adults alike, inviting them to the very simple and joyful interaction of seesawing. A tad more challenging interaction was found in Alexander Wolfe’s Kinesthesia, where approaching of lamp posts was demanded. Screams of joy still ensued, as people succeeded in creating a composition and a light show by running around the posts. 

Ack, ack, spegelns retrospection by Eva Beierheimer was aptly named, reflecting the spectator in front of it with a slightest delay, modifying the reflection in a very delightful 60’s OP-art way. Tove Alderin’s Orchestrated Entities_Chorus was advertised as interactive, but even after downloading the app and bellowing at my phone I didn’t quite find out how it should have manifested. It didn’t matter, however, since the artwork was beautiful on its own, without me or anyone else (but especially me) adding my voice to it.

Karl XII tells people to move it, move it

An orchestra of lamp-posts

Eva Beierheimer lures people to move it, move it

This artwork doesn't include me screaming

More or Less Minimalistic Artworks

I was quite impressed with the brave simplicity of Ljuset by Johan Thurfjell. The single projected candle became a statement bigger than its size or luxes. Also simple, but not quite small, Luke Jerram’s Gaia recycled the idea of his previous Museum of the Moon. There, a celestial body, in this case Earth, is placed somewhere where it doesn’t really belong, in this case to the Royal Palace. 

Julia Dantonnet’s Horizon is probably my favourite of this year’s edition. Based on an old trick of lighting design, it made light birds fly on the walls of City Museum. Being a close friend with minimalism, I’d be happy just with the birds, but I guess light art festival context demands a showy element, even if it’s just a colour changing light wash.

Not a piece by Elton John

Every man becomes an Atlas here

Flipping birds

Future Forecast

As a light art educator, I was super interested in the student section. Within and Against, a collection of student works, was compiled from site specific artworks around Serafimerstranden, realised by art, lighting design and curating students of Konstfack, Kungliga tekniska högskolan and Stockholm University, respectively. Few of the artworks actually used added light, the overall approach was quite conceptual and contemplating, making use of existing lights. I couldn’t find all the artworks, but based on what I did find, I expect to see interesting use of light in the Stockholm visual arts scene in forthcoming years.

The Drop by Karin Askling

My trip to Nobel Week Lights has been supported by Frame Finland, and I thank them with all my heart.