Now that the sun has come out I have been to Canary Wharf to enjoy Summer Lights, a unique exhibition of eleven exciting new artworks that shimmer and shine in natural light. It's really a ploy to attract Londoners to all the local hospitality options, so very much like the regular Winter Lights festival but smaller, sparser, sunnier and less cold. I found it much easier to read the art blurb in daylight, and to wonder who on earth wrote it.
I started by the Thames with Ocean Rise by Aphra Shemza.
This mixed reality sculpture built using sustainable material emulates a wave in the ocean and highlights the rise in sea levels due to global warming creating a connection between the physical and the digital. Firing up a bespoke soundscape created by sound artist Mowgli accessed via a QR code would have allowed me to contemplate my role in the current climate crisis and offered a moment of calm amidst the busyness of city life, but instead I just looked inbetween the wooden slats and was underwhelmed.
A short distance along the riverside I came across Shine your Colours by Tine Bech Studio.
This multifaceted artwork consisting of 6 transparent coloured glass panels allowed me to see myself and the world through different colours. The whole environment invited me to take playful photos within a space focused on wellbeing where people can meet, relax and reflect, but I declined because it was just 6 transparent coloured glass panels and the overarching sensation was meh.
Then I went to Cabot Square to reach Circle of Light (Spectrum) by toyStudio.
This installation expresses the many colours which make up sunlight and the visual spectrum, mapping them into an arc defined by the position of the sun at sunrise and sunset, bringing something as ethereal as a rainbow to the Canary Wharf landscape in the tangible form of public art. The definition of the colours is supposed to become more or less defined depending on the angle and intensity of the sun, but only if you hang around for hours and I managed seconds.
Crossing the road I stepped into Hymn to the Big Wheel by Liz West.
By stepping playfully into this immersive sculptural work exploring the illusion and physicality of colour and natural light in space I was encouraged to reposition and align myself to differing colourways to see a changing scope of jewel-like colours mixing before my eyes, creating diverse mixes and blends in context with my surroundings. I made sure to walk round the inner octagon at least once. I thought the floor was quite mucky.
In a pedestrianised street I found Summer Cloud We Dream Of You by Tine Bech Studio.
This playful work reflecting both visitors and the world around us is the perfect metaphor for our age, evoking child-like wonder in the abstract identity created in new forms with shape-shifting qualities that can inspire hope not only representing the idea of change but symbolising the human ability to dream. They are perhaps overdoing the word 'playful', I thought.
At the foot of Cubitt Steps was Whirl by Helena Doyle X Tom Cherry & Temple.
This installation aims to showcase the beauty and versatility of wind power and inspire the audience to imagine a future powered by renewable energy by transforming the wind into a dynamic dance of colour and light. I was invited to sit beneath the domed structure, relax and enjoy the mesmerising light show overhead, except there was no wind and nothing spun, let alone dazzled, so that metaphor fell flat.
In Jubilee Park I discovered Round and Round by Martin Richman.
I anticipated these discs bringing the Jubilee Park ponds to life, creating a lively space full of reflecting and refracting shapes and colours, creating moving shapes illuminating everything around them, casting visually rich patterns of coloured light responding to the weather and the artificial illuminations within its orbit... but the shadows of the trees and buildings meant the circles just rotated sometimes and that was mostly it.
Wrapped round the entrance to the shopping mall was Kaleidoscopic Prisms by Fiona Grady.
Inspired by the children’s toy yadda yadda combining a palette of rainbow transparent vinyl triangles that dance across the glass surface yadda yadda the coloured shapes interlock and follow the structure of the glass panes to create directional arrows that lead the viewer’s eyes to the central entrance yadda stained-glass effect yadda joyful palette yadda unique experience yadda yadda yadda. Never stop and read the art blurb.
It was quite a hike over to the Crossrail Place Roof Garden for Hidden Garden by Hugh Turvey.
These blown-up images, each a scientific representation of flora, use the medium of x-ray imaging to highlight their hidden architectural structures and allow visitors to engage with nature on a more intimate level, exposing just how fragile nature can be. There aren't many and they only appear at one end of the garden, scattered amongst office workers downing a tub of lunch, so don't rush. Every other display up here over the last year has been more enticing, even the cheap fluorescent one.
Finally I trudged over to Wood Wharf to see Kilpi by toyStudio.
This installation is inspired by traditional Nordic Sami huts and places of shelter in their most basic form with intricate perforations based on celestial maps representing the constellations found in the skies above to create ever-changing dappled shadows, projecting the celestial map onto the city’s landscape, but only if the sun's not blocked by clouds or a skyscraper otherwise it's just a wooden shelter with holes in the roof.
A few steps away was Out of the Cocoon by Amberlights.
The accompanying text was barrel-scrapingly vacuous (a colourful, interactive seating installation that can be admired both from afar and up close) and just a tad patronising (an installation that allows the theme of metamorphosis to be understood by children and adults alike) but I rather liked the giant four-way translucent butterfly wings and if the other ten had been like this I wouldn't have walked off quite so dissatisfied, so maybe wait for Winter.
