It was such a joy to bring Bloom to the Luminata Festival last night! We had easily 1000+ people walk through and enjoy the installation.
What I love about public art is how your original intention for a thing might be quite different from the actual experience or way the public interacts with it--and many times for the better! This was one of those times. Each flower was individually lit with its own battery and diode, but they weren't secured. In the past I've been able to just drop a diode and battery in to the bucket of the flower and viola! Illumination!
Well, the paths were set so narrow for walking and people at the festival had huuuge costumes knocking flowers to-and-fro. Before the first hour was out nearly half the garden was out of light due to costumes knocking batteries apart from diodes! So I ran home and grabbed some tape and began tape the diodes to the batteries--I knew I couldn't do them all (there are 500 flowers!) but at least salvage some throughout the night.
I thought I was going to be in for a full night of painstaking work but... as I was sitting in the center of the labyrinth taping lights together, a little girl came up to me all excited and was like "Oh my! Can -I- Light a flower in the garden?" And I was like, well of course! Thats one less light I have to stand up and set in place. So I give her a new light and she runs off. Not a second later another girl comes up and is like--oh my god, can I light one too? And before you know it I have a crowd of adults, children passing through on their way through the labyrinth asking to light flowers. Children are running and getting the disconnected lights and running back to light the garden.
It turned into this amazing experience where as the night went on the garden was slowly re-illuminated by all those walking through! 10 out of 10 a better way to bring this piece to life, and probably the way I will run the installation in the future too!
Big thanks to my folding team! Aaron Woodward, Rebecca Brightly, Tülin Kınacı, Elizabeth Cunningham, Brandee Laird, Chandler Stevens, Don Beeson, Jackson & Ca.t It was such an amazing experience and I had so many conversations of delight and joy from those who got to interact with and walk our installation