Photo : Borealis © Sébastien Puiatti
Borealis
Dan Acher
(Switzerland)
Aurora borealis in the heart of the city
For all ages
With this astonishing aurora borealis illuminating the sky of Rennes, Swiss designer Dan Acher brings a touch of magic to our first outdoor gatherings, in a bold attempt to use an artistic installation to permanently change our view of our city and planet. Borealis is as much a technological performance as it is an ecological message calling for communion with nature. It masterfully brings this luminous phenomenon typical of the northern skies right to us, in a mesmerising, magnetic and dream-like night show.

Swiss artist Dan Acher takes this celestial phenomenon and alters its original geographical setting to explore our ancestral need for communion with nature and our more recent compulsion to control it. High-power laser beams travel through particles in the air, creating fluorescent ribbons that slowly ripple through a sky changing from green to blue to purple. Through this collective gathering, Borealis draws out age-old emotions, legends and mythical tales.

What are we in the face of the forces of nature? Will we one day start seeing the Northern Lights in cities far from the poles they have inhabited for thousands of years? What does this artistic geo-engineering say about our desire to control the environment? What does it reveal about climate change and its effects on our lives, on our future, and our imagination? This simple yet awe-inspiring work sets out to transform an urban square into an artistic space for reflection, sharing, and emotional and sensory communion.

At the head of his laboratory of artistic experimentation and social innovation, Happy City Lab, Dan Acher is a mover and shaker who has been breaking up our routine in public space for twenty years, with some twenty installations around the world (Switzerland, Australia, the UK, Japan, France, etc.) that explore our relationship with the environment and our sense of community.

https://vimeo.com/191301289

BIOGRAPHY

Dan Acher

Dan Acher is an “artivist”, social entrepreneur and travelling teacher based in Switzerland. For the past twenty years, he has been creating artistic installations and participatory situations that shake up our daily urban routines and transform our vision of the city. As the founder of the Geneva-based creativity and social innovation studio Happy City Lab, he supports art that generates social and environmental change. Whether bringing together cyclists in New Zealand during his anthropology and management studies to protest the predominance of cars (Critical Mass), installing pianos (Play me, I’m yours), and giant switches (Turn Me ON), or creating a participative pop-up village, Exchange Boxes or a giant horse (Urban Rodeo) in public space, with his twenty or so artistic works, Dan Acher has constantly explored the idea of community in our urban imagination. As an Ashoka Fellow, he is invited regularly to talk about his work and vision at workshops and conferences around the world.

DISTRIBUTION

Dan Acher (creation & realisation), Oxsa (musical creation).

With the complicity of Le Liberté – leliberte.fr

Exporama

Thursday 01 July 2021
22:30 > 01:00
Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, Rennes
Continuously
Friday 02 July 2021
22:30 > 01:00
Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, Rennes
Continuously
Saturday 03 July 2021
22:30 > 01:00
Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, Rennes
Continuously

Free • Without reservation

cognitif moteur visuel
RETOUR EN IMAGES
SUR LE MÊME SUJET
Skip to content
The association is supported by the City of Rennes, the Brittany Region, the Ille-et-Vilaine Department & the ministry of culture.

© TDN 2024