State-of-the-art lighting system adds new dimension to art gallery experience
A renovation project at the Art Gallery of Swift Current (AGSC) has provided the main gallery space with a state-ofthe-art lighting system not used by any other art gallery in the province.
“We’re the first art gallery in Saskatchewan to install this type of lighting system, but it has been used in art galleries around the world, including major centres like the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and other major institutions,” AGSC Director Terri Fidelak said.
“So we feel really lucky to have a smaller scale version here.”
The main gallery was closed for nearly two months at the end of 2023 for the renovation project. The current exhibition opened in mid-january and offers the first opportunity to see the newly installed lighting system.
“The lighting system is really exciting,” she said. “We’re really pleased with it. We have a lot to learn about how best to use it with installations and that learning curve will continue, of course, because every exhibition has different needs. We’re looking forward to learning as we light upcoming shows and play around with that new system.”
This learning curve is related to the advanced nature of the system, which offers new possibilities to use lighting in creative ways for different exhibitions.
“One of the cool things about the lighting system is that it’s all run from an ipad,” she noted. “We can change the warmth of the lamps and we can change the colour of every bulb just by choosing a colour from the rainbow spectrum. Basically, we could take a photo of someone’s shirt and then the bulb would become that colour. So, it’s a pretty neat tool that offers a lot of creative possibilities to artists as well.”
These digitally controlled bulbs are installed on track lights that gives a lot of flexibility to move lights around to different areas and to stack lighting across different tracks.
“I think we purchased 60 new lamps and in time we can always add more, although I don’t believe we would need to,” she said. “We have a lot of lamps right now, because the other thing about the new lighting system is that it’s a lot more efficient than the old system. The bulbs can throw a lot more lights than the old bulbs could and also it uses far less energy.”
She noted that a track lighting system is a very typical way to provide effective illumination in contemporary art gallery spaces.
“The track allows us more capacity to move things around, because we can cluster a bunch of lights really close together and layer them along different tracks,” she said. “The old system had these fixed spots throughout the ceiling that we had to operate with. There were many lights and it wasn’t necessarily terrible in terms of our capacity to light things, but individual spots were starting to fail and we were running out of lamps. We couldn’t replace those lamps, because they aren’t made anymore.”
The previous lighting system were used since the gallery opened in 1974. The renovation project replaced the nearly 50-year-old dropped ceiling and fixed spotlights with a flat drywalled ceiling
on which the track lights were installed. The age of the previous lighting system made it necessary to proceed with the renovation project to avoid an unexpected and inconvenient failure.
“The lamps had been revamped or reworked numerous times to keep them going over the years and they were just starting to fail,” she said. “They were just getting really old and no longer operating very smoothly. We knew we were getting to a point where we could have no option. It could just fail in the middle of an exhibition and then we would not be able to light the show and have to find the money. So, we thought we’d avoid that kind of a catastrophe and plan ahead, knowing that the lighting system was nearing the end of its capacity.”
A good lighting system is an essential aspect of a successful gallery space and the display of artworks in an exhibition. It can be used to create a moody and atmospheric setting, there can be bright lights on individual pieces or the entire gallery space can be well lit.
“Lighting is one of those things in an art gallery that you’re not usually looking at,” she said. “It’s one of those very essential background tools for a gallery that you have to keep up to date and replace, but it doesn’t necessarily stand out as the thing that you’re noticing in
the gallery.”
The new lighting system will provide in the needs of the AGSC main gallery space for many years to come. The cost of the renovation project was around $75,000 and it was carried out as a budgeted capital project of the City of Swift Current.
“The City just recognized that without a lighting system an art gallery can’t function,” she said. “And of course, we want to make sure that we’re maintaining and enhancing the facilities that we offer to the citizens of Swift Current.” Fidelak is looking forward to other renovation projects being planned for the R.C. Dahl Centre, where the AGSC is located along with the Swift Current Branch Library. The City allocated $500,000 in the 2024 capital budget to replace the building’s roof, which is in poor shape.
In addition, the AGSC recently received a generous grant from an anonymous donor through the South Saskatchewan Community Foundation. This grant funding will be used to revitalize the lobby space.
The intention is to use the lobby area as an active space to showcase artworks from the AGSC’S permanent collection and to create a welcoming atmosphere for those entering the building to visit the gallery and library.
“That’s something we’re really looking forward to seeing happen,” she said. “It’s an extension of this lighting project as well, where we’re trying to take care of those essential needs that the Art Gallery has in order to keep the space really lively, really welcoming, really adaptive and capable of supporting the community in many ways.”