Everyone remembers the luminescent bike path dedicated to Van Gogh. Its designer, Daan Roosegaarde, has created another installation with evocative features, exalting the beauty of the earth and paying tribute to agriculture with “a dream landscape that shows the beauty of light and sustainability. Not as utopia but as protopia”.
The field of LIGHT that GLOWS at night
# Grow is a hymn to farmers and the land
Thousands of red and blue lights dance at night on the 20,000 square meters of a leek field in the agricultural area of Flevopolder, the largest man-made island in northern Holland.
It is with the Grow project that the visionary architect and designer and his team want to enhance the beauty of agriculture through a play of light and by merging art “with science, poetry and cutting-edge technology.”
In fact, the artist recalled that “most of the time we don’t notice these huge cultivated areas, yet the soil and the fruits of the Earth feed us every day and allow us to live.”
# Grow isn’t just art: it promotes sustainable agriculture and protects biodiversity
In addition to offering a dream landscape, the goal is to implement an experiment in more sustainable agriculture that is being carried out in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research, BioLumic and MediaMonks.
Inspired by advances in photobiology, a discipline that studies the interactions between light and living organisms, the installation uses special blue, red and ultraviolet lights to improve plant growth and resilience and to reduce the use of pesticides by up to 50%.
# A hopeful message for the future
The high-intensity LED system creates a hypnotic, carefree vision that, “in times of pandemic, is full of meanings”. In fact, according to Roosegaarde, Grow is “a call for light in these dark times. A work to do good for nature, but also give people hope“.
However, the location of the installation has remained secret due to the pandemic.
ALESSIA LONATI
