50,000 solar powered bulbs illuminate the Australian desert in Bruce Munro‘s latest immersive installation ‘Field of Light’. Bruce Munro conceived the idea for the Field of Light while visiting Uluru in 1992, but it wasn’t until 2004 that the installation first materialized at both London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and in Munro’s own backyard in south-west England. Field of Light has since dazzled visitors at sites across the United Kingdom, the United States and Mexico.
“Field of Light was one idea that landed in my sketchbook and kept on nagging at me to be done,” said Bruce. “I saw in my mind a landscape of illuminated stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, quietly wait until darkness falls, under a blazing blanket of southern stars, to bloom with gentle rhythms of light,” he said. “Field of Light is a personal symbol for the good things in life.”
In keeping with the desert’s vast scale, Munro and his team have installed more than 50,000 slender stems crowned with radiant frosted-glass spheres. The coloured spheres, connected via illuminated optical fibre, bloom as darkness falls over Australia’s spiritual heartland. Pathways draw viewers into the installation, which come to life under a sky brilliant with stars.
The solar-powered installation, on show at Ayers Rock Resort, will remain open throughout the Red Centre’s distinct seasons until 31 March 2017.
all images courtesy of Bruce Munro