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098 DECORATIVE & DESIGN / LIGHT ART / FIELD OF LIGHT, BATH, UK


MIRACLE GLOW


Bruce Munro’s Field of Light took root in the grounds of the newly refurbished Holbourne Museum in a revival of a long lost tradition.


The grounds of the recently refurbished Holbourne Museum in Bath, UK, (mondo*arc #62) provided the location for the latest incarnation of Field of Light – a nocturnal garden of alien flora conceived and constructed by Bruce Munro. The sculpture made its first appearance back in 2004 as part of a show at London’s V&A museum and was revived four years later, to much acclaim, in the fields outside the giant bio- domes of the Eden Project in Cornwall. The piece features a host of glowing fibre- optic flowers, their bulbous heads swaying on slender acrylic stems, connected together by a sprawling root system of fibre optic cables. “I’m really delighted to be working with


the Holburne Museum,” said Munro “The director Alexander Sturgis and his team have injected so much energy into the place, and are making this beautiful little museum into a genuinely world-class and exciting destination.” Initial inspiration for the piece came during a trip through the Australian red desert some eighteen years ago. Munro was transfixed by


the way the the landscape lay barren until heavy rain caused thousands of dormant seeds to burst into bloom. Like dry desert seeds lying in wait for the rain, the sculpture’s fibre optic stems lie dormant until darkness falls, and then under a blazing blanket of stars they flower with gentle, pulsing rhythms of light. Each cluster of stems is illuminated by an external projector on a colour wheel, so the stems themselves hold no electric power at all. At the Holburne, there were 5,220 blooms, including an indoor set, topped with clear spheres and fixed in small plinths, installed to maximise reflections in the Museum’s new glass extension. According to the Holburne’s Director, Alexander Sturgis, the piece is riviving an old tradition at the Holbourne. “The park in which the Museum sits was famous for its illuminations in the eighteenth century so we are delighted to be able to surround our new building with Bruce Munro’s Field of Light,” he said. “It works beautifully on our site and really lifts the spirits at the darkest time of the year.” www.brucemunro.co.uk


Inspired by the sudden bloom of desert flora after a rainstorm, Field of Light’s latest incarnation at Holbourne Museum in Bath comprises 5,220 flowers. Clusters of these pieces are connected by fibre-optic cable to a projector with a colour wheel that causes the entire garden to gently pulse with light.


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