The anticipation of winter swells with each cascading golden leaf. By dusk this evening, the city's concrete sidewalks and chilly, blue-green lawns will be more densely patterned with amber foliage than they were this morning. Seasonal metamorphosis is upon us; here in Colorado the transition from summer to fall to winter is quick and unapologetic to those who fail to notice.
Colorado winters are not lacking sun. But if you've encountered one long and dreary winter, you don't forget how a single string of blinking holiday lights, or a shop lamp left on overnight, infuse an otherwise bleak walk home with gleaming warmth. Experiencing winter is being allowed to fully and completely swing back and forth between dark and light, gloom and snug.
Scandinavian designers Lisa Pacini and Christine Istad spend winter above the Arctic Circle, where for consecutive days, the sun doesn’t make it over the horizon for 24 hours (a polar night); some parts of Norway experience 60 polar nights in a row. Pacini and Istad have envisioned a creative remedy to swing from this darkness in which they find themselves enveloped each winter.
A "stand in for the missing sun", Pacini and Istad's Sun is three meters in diameter; it's luminosity is generated from LED lights that cast glowing hues of pinks and blues one would expect to see in the twilight sky while cruising around Norway's fjords in January. The designers intend to delight and amuse rather than to cure Seasonal Affective Disorder, but the mood altering potential of Sun should not be underestimated. Invoking and securing light, in literal and metaphorical forms, is a Scandinavian speciality. I'm enchanted by these designers' responsiveness to and engagement with their world.
Journeying around via cruise ship and pick-up truck, Pacini and Istad's Sun has kissed many of Norway's lightless towns with it's dreamy glow. This September, the piece is featured at the 100% Norway show at London Design Week. Obscured of its sublime Scandinavian backdrop and propped against a brick facade, it 's stripped of its original grandeur. Fame in London aside, I can't imagine that Sun feels very star-like, there on the wall.
lovely review, thanks for making me aware of this intriguing new work
Posted by: Anton Van Lee | October 11, 2013 at 06:57 PM