FESTIVAL OF LIGHT, LYON “FISHERMEN OF THE STARS”

Although our work was well received in the previous year, it was still a struggle to pass through the difficult competition. Our proposal to perform a light installation at the Place Louis Pradel, which is the main square facing onto the City Hall and the Opera Theater earned selection. Drawing inspiration from the topology of the square, which contained fountains and watercourses, we conceived the “Spectacle of light and sound painting an image of one day of fishermen catching stars in the Milky Way.”

We crafted towers, on which light and sound equipment were installed inside a wooden fisherman’s hut, and by casting a net from there, it reproduced a style of fishing often seen on France’s Atlantic seaboard. The start of the one day of the fishermen with the sound of a crashing wave is colorfully portrayed by stars, and before long, a group of light dots accompanied by stormy weather appear, and the nets that take the catch sparkle and twinkle. The sound of rain announcing the breaking of dawn augured the end of the one day. We had decided that there must be no performers, no narration and no images telling this poetic story—it had to be expressed only by light and sound. Although the difficult task we had set was challenging to realize, the resulting work was counted among the greatest installations of that year and widely publicized.