An Australian premiere in Fremantle for the 2019 Fremantle Biennale, Studio Roosegaarde presented a large-scale light installation, Waterlicht, illustrating the universal power and poetry of water. Cascading waves of blue light soared in the middle of Esplanade Park, simulating a virtual flood and calling attention to rising water levels along Fremantle’s shoreline. The work embraced the unique physical features of the site while acknowledging its past. A soundscape accompanied the work, including local stories about Fremantle’s waterfront with contributions from traditional custodians, prominent civic figures, historians, artists and community members. These stories live on as an enduring legacy of the work’s appearance in Fremantle, and serve as a stirring call-to-action for a city-wide conversation around clean water initiatives and climate change.
Presented for UNDERCURRENT 2019.
About the
artist
Studio Roosegaarde
Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde (b 1979) is a creative thinker and maker of social designs which explore the relation between people, technology and space, and is best known for creating landscapes of the future. He founded Studio Roosegaarde in 2007, where he works with his team of designers and engineers towards a better future. Roosegaarde is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and was featured by Forbes and Good 100 as a creative change maker. Internationally acclaimed works include ‘Smog Free Project’ (the largest outdoor air purifier which turns smog into jewellery), ‘Smart Highway’ (roads that charge throughout the day and glow at night) and the recent, ‘Space Waste Lab’ (visualising and upcycling waste). Roosegaarde’s mantra ‘Schoonheid’ is a Dutch word which has two meanings: ‘beauty’ and ‘clean’, as in clean air, energy and water. For Roosegaarde this should be a fundamental condition in daily life. Studio Roosegaarde has vast experience in public space commissions for the cities of Rotterdam, Beijing, Paris, Eindhoven and Stockholm. Roosegaarde has exhibited at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Design Museum in London, Tate Modern, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, Google Zeitgeist, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
