For my light art project, I want to do a piece based on the mid-autumn moon festival. This is an Asian holiday that celebrates the full moon in the fall and is the second most celebrated holiday in Vietnam. The moon festival is a holiday I really enjoy and find integral to my culture. Additionally, I think the timing works out very well because this year, it falls on October 1.
The moon festival is celebrated as Children’s Day in Vietnam so it is very fun and oriented towards children with bright decorations. One integral part to the festival are lanterns. These lanterns vary greatly in terms of shapes and size, but for the most part, they are paper lanterns and are lit by a candle. More modern versions have switched to using LED lights instead for ease and fire safety. Different lanterns pay homage to the different stories and traditions regarding the holiday.
I have 2 themes that I want my light art to follow. First, I want it to pay homage to Children’s Day and be very interactive, playful, and colorful. Some ways that this can be achieved is through shadow lantern art, and having the lanterns change colors or play music when touched. The second theme is storytelling; I want the piece to be very culturally connected and tell a story about an aspect of Vietnamese culture. Some methods include arrangement of the lanterns and using traditional fabrication methods.
The first concept I have is a 3D collage of lanterns. This piece would focus on tradition and feature a variety of lanterns. With this concept, it would be nice if the lanterns could change colors or play sounds when each individual lantern is touched. I would explore different ways to make each lantern and try to fabricate each lantern as culturally and historically accurate as possible (ex: using bamboo, silk, cellophane).
The second concept is based on Vietnamese folklore of a man who is trapped on the moon with his banyan tree. Every year during the moon festival, children light up lanterns so that they can show him the way back to earth. With this concept, there would be a series of lanterns that form a path to a moon lantern. These paths would cycle through a light sequence to simulate the man walking back down to earth. The moon lantern would be interactive and have a display that tells a story either through LED display or shadow art. The display would show various images like the man on the moon with his tree, and a mooncake design which is a dessert that is very popular for the holiday.
My concept questions are:
- Which idea is more interesting to you?
- What can I do to make my project better?
I love how your ideas are so personal and related to your culture! I like your first idea and how you can use traditional fabrication methods to make your lanterns. I think having them be interactive with touching them resulting in music or different light shows would be so cool! You could maybe paint a scene on some of the lanterns too!
I really like the interactive portion of your first idea, i think it would be really cool for them to change color when you touch them, you could even use material that will allow fragments of light to shine through so that they make cool patters and shadows on the surrounding walls.
I love the way you are combining your personality and culture with your work! I love the idea of mimicking the lanterns and conveying the same message as the festival!
I really like the idea of the lanterns being interactive. If it’s not too ambitious of an idea you might be able to blend your two ideas together and have a series of lanterns like in the second idea, but that together tell a story and are interactive.
I personally really like your second project proposal as I think theres a lot of creative space to work with for this idea with the different dynamic elements you can implement using the candles and moon, as well as the depth in the overall arrangement of the path of candles and the moon you can setup.