The Eirigh art installation was exhibited at the Earth Rising Eco Art Festival at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in October of 2022. It was positioned at the heart of the festival to be an inspiring example of sustainable construction and interdisciplinary achievement. Éirigh opened conversations about the environment, climate change and most importantly environmentally conscious approaches to construction.
Our brief was to create a lighting solution to the beautiful circular timber structure designed in the spirit of sustainability, circularity and collaboration. The solution had to be low cost, sustainable, movable and could operate without any permanent power supply. The project also had to be completed very quickly with a turnaround for total design, supply and installation of eight weeks and all materials had to be reuseable with no wastage. As a result the design process moved at pace, with decisions and design changes made quickly in a intense but collaborative and fun environment.
The Eirigh sculpture was designed to capture the movements of the sun as it created an evolving pattern of shadows throughout the day under and around the timber structure. With the lighting design, we wanted to mimic these natural shadows at night while also highlighting the beautiful repeated pattern and form of the timber structure, in a natural way.
Our approach was to focus on the oculous, the centre of the structure and focal point. As it mimiced the sun we lit outwards from here using hidden lighting using a warm colour temperature of 2700K in sympathy and accentuating the warm finishes of the timber. Lighting from here also allowed the light to travel naturally along the structure, being guided downward and creating shadows, highlighting the form and texture of the beautifully crafted structure and associated woven elements within.
To minimise light pollution and combat biodiversity loss we also wanted to minimise any upward light spill, the only upward facing lighting being onto the Irish wicker sail, which blocked upward light to the sky, while at the same time highlighting the beautiful Irish Wicker work. The instalation was controlled on a timeswitch to switch off after 11pm each night.
The power supply was provided by two sets of 24V batteries, each powering the entire installation for a couple of nights, interchanged every second day. The second set charging while the first set was powering the installation. This removed the need for any power cables and kept all power infrastructure small and hidden as well as being local to the installation.
Eirigh was such a success at the Earth Rising Festival the sculpture was taken down and reinstalled at the same IMMA Royal Hospital Kilmainham venue for a three month period from February to April 2023.
All elements of the Eirigh structure are now in storage with the aim to resuse at festivals and events over the coming years, showcasing creative, sustainable and circular design.
