Preparations are well under way for the eighth edition of the Light to Night Festival that commences this week…
… with teams of personnel including lighting and audio technicians, fabricators and artists working on more than 60 works of art and programmes at various locations.
The marquee event of 2024’s Singapore Art Week that starts on Jan 19, the Light to Night Festival will run till Feb 8 and is the largest visual arts festival organised by National Gallery Singapore.
Interactive art installations, interdisciplinary programmes, light projections and live performances will take place around National Gallery Singapore, Victoria Theatre, The Arts House and the Padang and set the civic district abuzz.
While artists, both veteran and budding, are at the forefront of the festival, it takes entire crews behind the scenes to ensure that the installations – encompassing sculptures, lighting projections and set designs – are executed to plan.
One of the main highlights this year is Wings of Change by veteran artist Kumari Nahappan, who is known for her large-scale sculptures that often depict subjects such as fruit and seeds.
Supervised on site by the artist herself, the work on Jan 13 involved transporting eight pre-inflated saga seeds made out of canvas to the Padang.
A single giant saga seed, some 6m in height and 7.8m in diameter, was then inflated twice – once to check if its placement would obstruct guests from viewing the light projections on the facade of National Gallery Singapore, and a second time after the placement of its base was confirmed.
Because the seed was so big, six workers who specialised in inflatables had to help support it in place during inflation and made minor adjustments based on the artist’s instructions.
Rain was another issue to contend with, as many of the installations were outdoors, meaning work had to pause when there were downpours.
Take, for example, local artist Howie Kim’s installation Party Pavilion, situated at the Asian Civilisations Museum Green.
Work on the theme park-inspired piece had to wait till the rain stopped in the afternoon on Jan 12, before seven workers slowly pieced together, like a jigsaw, a sheltered platform that visitors can walk through.
Light projections, which have been present in all editions of Light to Night, require a lot of patience during the set-up and troubleshooting phase.
The 205m-long facade of National Gallery Singapore will feature light projections from Singaporean artist Teo Eng Seng and Paris-based Polish artist Milosh Luczynski in 2024.
A three-dimensional animation of the National Gallery was projected onto the actual building’s facade to precisely align 33 high-powered laser projectors.
ALL MAPPED OUT
This animation was meticulously crafted using a laser scan stencil of the building and precisely mapped onto the facade through an advanced projection mapping system.
The visual arts festival has free and ticketed experiences, and festival-goers can pre-book their tickets for select programmes at lighttonight.sg