Located in Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, Longwood Gardens consists of over 1,077 acres of horticultural heaven with 20 indoor and 20 outdoor gardens for visitors to explore. Featuring a 20,000 sq ft conservatory with over 5,500 types of plants, and extensive outdoor gardens and fountains; the Longwood is a great place to experience nature’s beauty.
Currently running at the Longwood Gardens until September 29th, 2012 are nine different light installations by British artist and light designer, Bruce Munro. In this debut exhibition, the gardens become illuminated with large-scale, site-specific installations that will take your breath away.
For visitation and additional information on all of the exhibits, be sure to check out the official website at: http://light.longwoodgardens.org/light/home
Longwood Gardens: Light Installations by Bruce Munro
Water Towers – Light Installation by Bruce Munro
Water Towers: Meadow at Hourglass Lake
Water Towers marks the transition between Longwood’s formal Gardens and its natural landscape. Comprised of 69 structures built out of one-liter recyclable plastic bottles filled with water, laser-cut wood layers, and fiber optics connected to an LED projector and sound system, the installation beckons visitors to immerse themselves in the spaces between the towers to explore the spectacle of light and sound.
“When I was 21 years old, I read a book called The Gifts of Unknown Things by Lyall Watson, a radical thinker operating on the margins of accepted science. In it Watson describes Tia, a young girl living on an island in the Indonesian archipelago who possesses the magical gift of seeing sounds in color. Watson also writes about how the Earth has a natural pulse in the upper atmosphere, resonating at a rate of 69 beats per day. The pulse forms a deep note well below human powers of hearing. As a tribute to Watson, the installation consists of 69 towers that change color according to the music played from them. As a result, visitors will experience sound translated into color, just as Tia did.” – Bruce Munro
Materials
—17,388 1-liter recyclable bottles
—552 laser-cut wood layers
—42.9 mi (69,000 m) bare optic fiber
—69 LED light sources with hand-painted color wheels
—23 speakers
—1 audio control box
—1 solid-state music player
—This installation uses 1,500 watts of power—similar to energy used by a standard electric heater
– All materials will be recycled or reused in future installations by Munro. The bottles will be recycled locally
[Source: Longwood Gardens]
Forest of Light – Installation by Bruce Munro
Forest of Light: Forest Walk
Forest Walk is a densely populated ecosystem of tulip trees, white oaks, and sugar maples that provides a secluded, immersive setting for Forest of Light, an installation comprised of 20,000 illuminated glass spheres lining the pathways. Inspired by the way in which dormant seeds burst into bloom after a rainfall, it is an appropriately sited tribute to the ephemeral beauty of natural cycles and their lasting survival over time.
“Forest of Light is an arboreal variation on my work Field of Light, which was originally conceived in 1992 during a trip I took through the Red Desert in central Australia. Deserts have an incredible feeling of energy and ideas seemed to radiate from them along with the heat. They also have many incongruities: they seem to be infertile, barren places until it rains and they bloom like a veritable Eden. I wanted to create an illuminated field of stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, would bloom after darkness falls with gentle rhythms of light under a blazing blanket of stars. By placing an alien installation in the midst of nature, the enormous contrast allows one to literally see the wood from the trees, and that has always been the focus since the idea first germinated so many years ago.” – Bruce Munro
Materials
– 20,000 clear glass spheres
– 20,000 acrylic rods mounted on stakes
– 86.9 mi (140,000 m) bare optic fiber
– 80 halogen light sources with hand-painted color wheels
– On a sunny day, Longwood’s solar field produces enough energy to run this installation for 54,800 days.
– All materials will be recycled or reused in future installations by Munro.
[Source: Longwood Gardens]
Arrow Spring – Light Installation by Bruce Munro
Arrow Spring: Beyond Flower Garden Walk
Arrow Spring is a 300-foot serpentine trail filled with sage that resembles a flowing watercourse by day and a meandering stream of light by night. Its luminescence is the result of the innovative pairing of ordinary LED flashlights and cutting-edge fiber optics concealed within sculptural spheres placed throughout the landscape, weaving 15,000 points of light into the swath of sage.
“The idea for Arrow Spring came to me on a bike ride in 2009. I was thinking about the meandering pathway that led through a work of mine called CD Sea (in which 600,000 recycled CDs were laid out in a field in the British countryside) and realized there was a natural connection to the spiritual rivers described in two of my favorite books, Kim by Rudyard Kipling and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. My idea was to simply create a serpentine river of light, and the title of the installation is taken from the River Arrow in Kim.” – Bruce Munro
Materials
– 16 stainless steel spheres
– 16 LED flashlights
– Over 58 mi (94,000 m) bare optic fiber
– 328 ground stakes
– Four different sage: Salvia farinacea ‘Blue Emotion’ SallyfunTM, Salvia farinacea ‘Blue Tune’ SallyfunTM, Salvia farinacea ‘Dansalfun1’ Sallyfun Blue, and Salvia farinacea ‘Evolution’
– All non-plant material will be recycled or reused in future installations by Munro. The sage will be turned into planting material at the Gardens’ composting facility.
[Source: Longwood Gardens]
Light Shower – Installation by Bruce Munro
Light Shower: Exhibition Hall
The Exhibition Hall is an extraordinary site for Light Shower, an installation of 1,650 teardrop-shaped diffusers suspended from the ceiling by fiber-optic strands. Reflecting in the water that floods the Hall’s sunken marble floor, Light Shower provides a particularly poetic visual accompaniment to a space that is valued as one of the Gardens’ most iconic.
“In 2008 I was invited to propose some alternative lighting designs for a contemporary highland lodge at the head of Loch Ossian in Scotland. I found myself sitting on a step halfway up the main stairs of the lodge absorbing a magnificent, uninterrupted view of the loch and group of snow-capped mountains beyond it. It was raining in squalls against the plate-glass window, which distorted the view with rivulets of water streaming down the panoramic pane. The words “light” and “shower” registered in my mind and I had my idea. The original installation now hangs motionless as if suspended in time, overlooking but not interrupting the view of Loch Ossian. By day it catches glimpses of the sunshine, shedding prismatic flecks of light onto the stairs, by night it morphs into what it is: a shower of light.” – Bruce Munro
Materials
– 1,650 teardrop diffusers
– 10.3 mi (16,500 m) bare optic fiber
– 3 halogen light sources with hand-painted color wheels
– On a sunny day, Longwood’s solar field produces enough energy to run this installation for 93,352 days.
– All materials will be recycled or reused in future installations by Munro
[Source: Longwood Gardens]
Field of Light – Installation by Bruce Munro
Field of Light: Small Lake
Field of Light is an installation composed of 7,000 frosted glass spheres that appears to grow organically on the far bank of the Small Lake. Reflecting both the installation and the site’s naturalistic park-like landscape, the water serves to extend the scale of the artwork.
“Field of Light was originally conceived in 1992 during a trip I took through the Red Desert in central Australia. Deserts have an incredible feeling of energy and ideas seemed to radiate from them along with the heat. They also have many incongruities: they seem to be infertile, barren places until it rains and they bloom like a veritable Eden. I wanted to create an illuminated field of stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, would bloom after darkness falls with gentle rhythms of light under a blazing blanket of stars.” – Bruce Munro
Materials
– 7,000 frosted glass spheres
– 7,000 acrylic rods mounted on stakes
– 34.8 mi (56,000 m) bare optic fiber
– 15 metal halide light sources with hand-painted color wheels
– Each “stem” uses approximately 3.3 watts—or in total 1,950 watts, the equivalent of a large microwave oven.
– All materials will be recycled or reused in future installations by Munro
[Source: Longwood Gardens]
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