Sustainable Light Installations Transform Singapore’s Marina Bay

Most light art pieces live inside a museum or gallery, and for good reason— light easily floods the white walls of an exhibition space, creating an almost hypnotic experience. But light art can be just as powerful outside, especially when installed in a public space.

Presented by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore’s i Light Marina Bay features 25 installations of light art with a sustainable twist. The festival’s artists used recyclable materials and energy-efficient lighting in visually stunning and environmentally friendly pieces.

The festival also encourages citizens to make an effort to conserve energy. In collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature, i Light Marina Bay features a “Switch Off, Turn Up” campaign that urges locals to reduce their consumption through small actions like turning off any lights not in use.

With the help of Philips Lighting, the festival also features a light bulb exchange where visitors can trade their used incandescent bulbs for energy-saving LED ones.

These events only add more context to the eye-catching pieces included in the festival. Curatorial duo Randy Chan, Principal Architect at Zarch Collaboratives, and Khairuddin Hori, Deputy Director of Artistic Programming at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, worked together to choose pieces that fit the theme of “In Praise of Shadows.”

This year’s festival features the most participating local artists so far, with more than half of the installations designed by local artists and students. The team received a number of submissions for this year’s festival through an open call, making the process of choosing the artists challenging. Besides local names, the festival also features artists from the U.S., Latvia, Japan, Germany, Israel and more.

“There was huge breadth and depth in the works presented, both locally and internationally,” Chan tells The Creators Project. “We generally received works of a rather high standard, so the selection process down to our current 25 artists was a bit challenging, but we chose the works you'll see at iLMB based on criteria that included the quality of interaction, sustainability and adherence to our theme of "In Praise of Shadows.”

The pieces play with light and shadow, often creating interactive experiences that encourage visitors to immerse themselves in dizzying visual landscapes.

KAZ Shirane’s Light Origami, for example, is a domed structure made of more than 300 origami shapes composed of aluminum composite panels. As visitors enter the dome, they find themselves surrounded by a 3D kaleidoscope of sorts that captures and reflects light.

“I DID IT” Society’s Emograph incorporates the viewer’s body. When a passerby places his or her finger into a box outfitted with technological equipment, the equipment reads the person’s pulse and transforms it into an array of colors. This design is then projected onto a façade in large scale, transforming the data into a stunning visual display.

Chan looks forward to these interactions the most. For him, the most exciting part about unveiling the festival is seeing the “artwork set against the background of our skyline” in a way that breathes new life into the area.

“Even for locals who are familiar with the Marina Bay precinct, the transformation of these urban spaces with the festival artwork invites visitors to reconsider the city's relationship with light and beauty,” writes Chan.

i Light Marina Bay is on display from March 4, 2016 to March 27, 2016. Admission is free. For more information, click here.

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