How can we make light a fully-fledged and equal contributor within contemporary dramaturgy? Reflecting Light is a research project by various lighting designers who are literally shining the spotlight on the use of light in the performing arts. With the support of KASK School of Arts and arts centre BUDA, they have been shaping a discourse on lighting design for four years now, and are trying to share this knowledge – formally and informally – through fanzines and residencies, among other things. 

‘Light is everywhere. It reveals and shapes the world we live in. Everything we see, every colour, form or texture we perceive, the atmosphere of a space, even the mood we are in, it all depends upon light.’ (Reflecting Light fanzine #1)

The project grouped lighting designers Emese Csornai, Ezra Veldhuis, Henri Emmanuel Doublier, Jan Fedinger, Jan  Maertens and Tomi Humalisto – and collaborated with Bruno Pocheron, Estelle Gautier, Ingunn Fjellang Sæther, Leticia Skrycky, Maureen Beguin, Meri Ekola & Minna Tiikkainen, Pernille Plantener Holst and Materia Leve.

In the darkness of the longest night, at the end of this trajectory, we want to show where we are and share some of our findings. Not as a conclusion of a finished research but as a way to project the work we’ve done into the future. Reflecting Light will continue as a digital platform – for anyone who feels connected to light where thoughts and experiences can be shared. And in the support of new projects and networks that broaden and deepen a living, discursive practice around light, as a place for collective observation, debate, ritual, belonging and kinship.

To celebrate this moment, we host two reflecting nights:

Reflecting Light – Ghent

Several artists raise questions from within the collected Reflecting Light fanzines – in a programme with collective readings, talks, performative interventions, the presentation of a new platform and some installations. With a.o. Materia Leve, Judith Dhondt, Amelia Malfait Lakhtara & the lighting designers from Reflecting Light.

PRACTICAL
Thursday 18 December
6 pm – 10.30 pm
in the arts library of KASK School of Arts, Jozef Kluyskensstraat, 9000 Gent
Free

Reflecting Night – Kortrijk 

A party disguised in lighting installations – by Emese Csornai, Ezra Veldhuis, Henri Emmanuel Doublier, Leticia Skrycky & Lucas Van Haesbroeck – music, the performance Las Lámparas by Leticia Skrycky, drinks, food and Campfire by Bosse Provoost and Ezra Veldhuis.

Las Lámparas, an electric choreography where sound moves the light and light turns again into sound, warming up the surroundings. Spot lights as electrical bonfires, aiming to activate a primordial state of observation like the one we feel when we contemplate a fire. Las Lámparas welcomes us, and allows itself to open, from the inside out, revealing itself as a place to stay and at the same a time to let go.

LINE UP
17:00 – 18:00 Light installations
19:30 Las Lámparas
21:30 – 22.30 Light installations
22:59 last train to Ghent/Brussels
23:30 Campfire

PRACTICAL
Saturday 20 December
4.55 pm till 01.30 am
Budascoop, Kapucijnenstraat 10, 8500 Kortrijk
€15 (including food)