Land of light
British artist Bruce Munro first visited the Red Centre four decades ago and immediately felt a compelling connection to the energy, heat and brightness of the desert landscape.
His 2016 installation, Field of Light, is the embodiment of this experience. As darkness falls and Uluṟu is thrown into silhouette, the land becomes alive. As far as the eye can see, colours illuminate the desert. Overwhelming in size, it is Bruce’s largest work to date, covering an area the size of more than seven football fields. Inviting complete immersion into what becomes a fantasy garden of sorts with 50,000 spindles of light, the stems breathing and swaying through a sprawling desert spectrum of ochre, deep violet, blue and warm white.
“I wanted to create an illuminated field of stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, would burst into bloom at dusk with gentle rhythms of light under a blazing blanket of stars,” Bruce says.
Initially intended as a temporary installation, it has now been extended indefinitely. This year, another captivating luminary installation by Munro opened: Light Towers at Kings Canyon.
Once again working with light and landscape at scale, Light Towers invites visitors to wander through its outback maze of illumination and sound. Changing colour in response to an entrancing soundscape by composer Orlando Gough, Light Towers is intended as a chance to pause, reflect and acknowledge the mystery of the Red Centre.
“The intention of Light Towers is not to be some spectacle of lights that flash in the desert. Rather, it is simply about enhancing the feeling of wonder and the sense of place that somewhere like Kings Canyon naturally gives you. I hope Light Towers will become a place where people can reconnect with nature, reconnect with themselves and escape the noise of the everyday in an incredible location,” Bruce explains.