Language of light // art that needs you // tauranga art gallery // 2018
This artwork aims to create an immersive environment that draws on healing methodologies that apply colour, scent and sound vibration to promote wellbeing. Colour therapy or chromotherapy has been in use for a long time. Much like the treatments in ancient Egypt, Greece and China where "colour halls" or rooms were painted different colours in an attempt to treat different ailments. Colour therapy has played an important role in the development of their medical practices, resulting in colour as a therapeutic treatment that has been proven over the centuries to have powerful healing effects. Scientists have begun to examine the correlation between art and healing and now many hospitals take part in art therapy programs by having patients engage in the arts, as the arts can help reduce stress and anxiety, improve well-being and enhance the way we fight infection.
The Language Of Light consists of 6 purpose built colour chambers minimal in design. Each containing a single light source, sound recording and scent receptacle. The audience was invited to engage with each colour chamber, experiencing the subtleties of colour, sound and scent vibrations of each particular colour ray. The participant was immersed in the chromotherapy chamber and then asked to feedback on their experience and responses. Positioning the artwork as a multi-sensory aspect of healthcare art installation. With interactive engagement not only on a visual level with colour, but also on a physiological level through optical receptors both visual and non-visual.
Light takes us back to our relationship with nature. The Language Of Light helps us to acknowledge our relationship with light as a part of who we are and how we are programmed to operate. Together, light and nature are our native origins and still provide sustenance for whom we actually are. By incorporating particular wavelengths of light into an environmental art installation there is the potential for positive physiological affects on the body. Here we can further aid in facilitating a healing process by creating environments for wellness that work on a physiological level as well as the visual through passive, non-invasive exposure to art installation.
Thank you to Monmouth Glass studio for working in collboration to create the bespoke hand blown lights to bathe the chambers in colour. Aurora Alchemy for working alongside me to design the Charkra scents based on the notes and frequency of each colour ray, and composer Steven Hue for composing and producing the sound scapes for each colour chamber.
