Luminarium At Lakeside Arts, Nottingham

All Images:Architects Of Air, 'Luminarium'

After visiting Mandy Payne’s exhibition, at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham, as discussed in my last post, my friend, Lorel and I also had time to look inside another attraction, situated nearby.

Credited to Alan Parkinson and Nottingham-based Architects of Air, the pop-up ‘Luminarium’ is a complex, bouncy castle-like environment [1.], comprising a number of organic chambers and tunnels, arranged around a larger central dome.  It’s supposedly inspired by the internal spaces of gothic cathedrals and Islamic architecture, but there’s more than a hint of 'Doctor Who', or the psychedelic 60s about it all too – not least because the overwhelming impression of being subsumed within an amorphous, organic environment of intense coloured light.  By employing translucent coloured PVC to construct the outer walls, the designers have cleverly harnessed nothing more than ambient daylight to saturate the structure’s internal cells with intense colours – something which could be experienced in full effect on the sunny afternoon we were there.

The main intention is clearly to create a kind of immersive, sensory zone, designed to stimulate relaxation or contemplation (another clue being the slightly cheesy ambient music also permeating the environment within).  I won’t pretend there’s any particularly profound  artistic relevance to this in the traditional sense - although dance music’s chill-out rooms, and the current fascination with meditation and colour therapies, are obvious cultural referents.  Nevertheless, I guess there’s nothing wrong with suspending one’s analytical faculties in favour of something more directly experiential, from time to time. 

And there certainly is much simple pleasure to be had from wandering around inside what mostly feels like an almost womb-like structure - whilst seemingly suspended in healing chromatic radiance, and freed from the hard edges of the modern world.  Or there would be - if it weren’t also full of over-excited small children [2.], whose instinct in such an environment, is less to ‘chill out’, than to charge around, shout with glee, and bounce off the walls at every opportunity.  The resulting atmosphere might be described as slightly fraught.  I wouldn’t want to appear too much of a killjoy though.  Plenty of fun was being had - even if not of the intended variety.  Perhaps the real mistake was to expect anything else on a weekend - which is, of course, prime family time.  Maybe a few adults-only sessions might be in order, although, even as I read that back - I wonder if it might not open up a whole new can of worms.  Either way, it did all make for a bit of amusing R&R, and some pleasing photos – and that’s surely enough.

Unfortunately, ‘Lumniarium’s stint at Lakeside is over now.  However, it looked pretty popular, if ticket demand and the queues to get in are any indication – so I expect it’ll inflate itself somewhere else, before too long.

[1.]:  I can't help wanting to use the term, 'overblown' here.

[2.]:  See - womb-like.