Architect Asif Khan will present Radiant Lines at The Light in Winter festival. Image courtesy of Federation Square.
Internationally renowned installation architect Asif Khan headlines The Light in Winter (LIW) festival with interactive and awe-inspiring Radiant Lines, to be unveiled at Melbourne’s Federation Square from 1 June.
In what is to be Khan’s first Australian commission, Radiant Lines will be presented as an exploration of line, rhythm, velocity and volume.
Made from forty rings of raw aluminium that will appear suspended in space, the circular sculpture will illuminate Federation Square with hundreds of LED lights each night of the festival in a rhythmic pattern that mimics the pulsating nature of bioluminescence.
Khan said that he hopes visitors to Radiant Lines will feel surprise and delight. ‘There’s this simple yet profound simplicity of interaction between people and place. I want this project to tap into the natural willingness of people to make marks upon a place.’
‘The project has a geometric purity which I think will be complemented by the complex surrounding architectural environment at Federation Square,’ he said.
‘We are placing the 15 metre diameter structure right in the middle of the Square, and in so doing we are creating a new yet temporary focus point for the city of Melbourne. What I’m really looking forward to seeing is a renewed vitality – a “light in winter.”’
Joining Khan for the LIW celebrations will be a number of local and international artists in a free nightly program of events, performances and exhibitions.
‘The combination of approaches from really diverse areas of visual culture is something really unique to the festival. What I like is the fundamentally human focus among the art forms which have been commissioned,’ said Khan.
Radiant Lines at LIW follows Khan’s enormously successful MegaFaces Pavilion, which featured at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, where he constructed giant 3D “selfies” on the façade of the Pavilion which were made of motorised components and LEDs.
During the 2012 London Olympic Games, he also designed Coca-Cola’s landmark pavilion for the Olympic Park, following a search for the best young architecture studio in the country.
Radiant Lines by Asif Khan runs nightly from 5:30pm to late at Melbourne’s Federation Square.
The Light in Winter 2014 is a free, three-week festival celebration of art, light and enlightenment.
For more information, visit The Light in Winter website.
