It was early evening when I visited the Holburne museum, and as darkness descended a crowd of lights appeared in the distance. The sea of electric bulbs swayed around the museum’s brand new glass extension like a field of flowers; the tiny lights bouncing off the glass and creating an ethereal hue.
Thanks to pickstock.co.uk
Bruce Munro’s Field of Light was everything I expected. The renowned lighting installation was instantly striking, yet peaceful and luminescent. It buzzed with electric modernity on the one hand, but floated with luminous tranquillity on the other; the stalks bending with the wind and moulding into the 18th Century garden.
The renowned installation first lit up the red desert in Australia in 1992, the changing energies of the desert inspiring Munro to create a magical masterpiece that has since graced window displays in Harvey Nichols, lit a curving grass roof next to a rainforest and jazzed up some of the UK’s bleakest landscapes. The installation’s success rides on the fact that it’s so adaptable. The bendy stems threaded with fibre optic cables vary in height and colour; creating a mass of ever-changing light wherever they are.
Munro’s installations aren’t florescent blots on the landscape. They mould into the setting; reflecting in puddles like lilies in a stream or swaying in the wind like real bobbing stalks: and the Holburne museum is the perfect host. Despite the controversy surrounding the modern block that juts out from the eighteenth century building, Munro’s exhibition is brought magically to life by the extension. The field of colourful lights gather round the glass walled café where you can sit and enjoy a glass of mulled wine with 5, 220 lights changing colour all around you. Crowds of bulbs also sit inside the walls like flower boxes; reflecting off the glass on both sides and giving them a magical finish whether you’re inside or out.
With a delicious range of home-made cakes ranging from seasonal minced-meat apple slice to chocolate brownies (most definitely recommended!) and mulled wine, theHolburneMuseummakes the field of lights a soothing experience that’s perfect for Christmas. And with the bulbs changing colour instantaneously, it’s difficult to get bored (but they will play “catch me if you can” with your camera). It’s definitely the most striking and soothing place to have a coffee inBaththis Christmas, and it’s free!
The Field of Lights will run at the Holburne Museum until the 8th January 2012. You can visit the dedicated website here http://www.holburne.org/field-of-light-2/ for more information.
Our thanks to Fiona Morrison for this feature.
