Internationally recognised artist Bruce Munro’s immersive installation, Field of Light Uluru, has opened at Ayers Rock Resort.
In keeping with the desert’s vast scale this is Munro’s largest work to date, more than 50,000 slender stems crowned with radiant frosted-glass spheres over an area the size of four football fields. It is also the artist’s first work to be illuminated through solar power. The spheres, connected via illuminated optical fibre, will bloom as darkness falls. Pathways created by the artwork will draw viewers into the installation, which will come to life under a sky brilliant with stars.
British artist Munro is best known for producing monumental light-based installations, which often employ a massing of components by the thousands. Frequently, Munro’s subject matter is his own experience of fleeting moments of rapport with the world and existence in its largest sense, of being part of life’s essential pattern. His reoccurring motif is the use of light on an environmental scale in order to create an emotional response for the viewer.
Munro conceived the idea for the Field of Light while visiting Uluru in 1992, but it wasn’t until 2004 that the artist was first able to realise it for London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, followed by a larger iteration in a field behind his home. Field of Light has since captivated visitors in differing site-specific iterations at locations 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,” Munro said.
“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.
“Field of Light is a personal symbol for the good things in life.
“I now have the honour and privilege of returning to create an iteration of this artwork for the place that inspired it. A work conceived in the red desert returns to its birthplace springing from the dry ground,” said Munro.
Guests to Ayers Rock Resort can experience the installation in a number of ways, with options including a two hour visit, a Night at Field of Light dining experience and the option to enjoy at Sunrise as the lights fade into the morning light.
“Field of Light Uluru presents an absolutely unique opportunity for guests to enjoy not only the spiritual nature of the destination, but experience it in a unique and mesmerising way,” said Voyages Executive General Manager Sales, Marketing and Distribution, Ray Stone.
The exhibition, aptly named Tili Wiru Tjuta Nyakutjaku or ‘looking at lots of beautiful lights’ in local Pitjantjatjara, will be in place for a full year throughout the desert’s distinct seasons, and will close on 31 March 2017.
“Logistics for a project such as this are immense, and we are fortunate to have the expertise of Qantas, the official airline partner of the Field of Light, who transported the unique stems of light all the way from the Bruce Munro Studio directly to Ayers Rock Airport”, said Ray.
The Qantas Group transported the stems, weighing in total approximately 15 tonnes, more than 19,000 kilometers (11,800 miles) over 32 international and domestic flights to Australia, the farthest a piece of Munro’s artwork has travelled to an exhibition.