For this year's Bram Stoker Festival, Swiss 'artivist' Dan Acher will bring the Northern Lights to the Upper Courtyard of Dublin Castle, via the Irish premiere of his mesmerising installation Borealis - he introduces the project below.
Much of my work is about using cities as playgrounds, with the aim of creating a sense of connection between strangers. My installations are always designed to generate feelings of belonging and community, be it across a neighbourhood, city, countries or even continents, and I'm excited to be bringing this to Ireland for the first time.
With Borealis, I’ve tried to recreate the experience of the Northern Lights in any city square or park so that large numbers of people can gather and look up in awe, together. My thinking is that seeing something magical – something that shouldn’t naturally be there - gives rise to shared emotions and so to a sense of connection between people witnessing this together. And even if you know your city well, streets and buildings take on new meaning under Borealis. From personal experience I can say that by transforming the emotional context of the public spaces we’re used to, we can shift the way we think about our city and the people we share it with. Try this out for yourself at Dublin Castle.
Because of its scale, Borealis also inspires a feeling of coming together in the face of something that is bigger than all of us. It means that the things that may divide us – our background, culture, age, gender, orientation - are no longer in play when looking up. I refer to this as a sense of shared humanity and feel it’s particularly important at this moment in history.
Like Dracula himself, the Northern and Southern Lights are timeless. Societies across the ages have attributed many legends to them and Borealis also touches on this ancestral relationship with nature. But today this relationship is fraught; climate is rapidly changing due to excessive human activity, and geoengineering (the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change) is being discussed as a solution to global warming. We have to think hard about the consequences of such an endeavour and act urgently for our collective future on this planet.
I’ve embraced the label 'Artivist’ that was given to me some years ago by a journalist. Art and activism have long intermingled to tackle society’s big issues but, more recently, the term 'artivism' has gained traction as the catchword for a form of art specifically produced to generate social change. For me it’s about using accessible and universal art to make people aware of some of the key issues of our time: climate breakdown, social isolation, mental health and wellbeing. As world citizens on a shared planet we have to look out for our home and each other and my installations aim to reflect this.
Borealis has accompanied an Australian Aboriginal ceremony in Adelaide, lit up the skies over the Tower of London, launched an art and technology center in Switzerland, been seen in Japan, Abu Dhabi, Boston and over snowy Helsinki Olympic Stadium amongst others. I’m excited to be bringing it to Ireland now for the first time with Dublin’s Bram Stoker Festival. Insider tip: bring a blanket/hoodie/vampire cape, lie back, look up, and let your mind and emotions run free.
Borealis is happening at Dublin Castle from Friday 28th October - Monday 31st October at Dublin Castle. A limited number of final free tickets will be released on Monday 24 October at 7pm - find out more here.
