Field of Light Australia’s ‘Red Centre’ has been transformed with the arrival of Bruce Munro’s Field of Light. Planted in the foreground of Uluru and comprising some 50,000 solar lights atop slender stems, the monumental installation creates a visual impression of a field of glowing buds which sway in the evening breeze as the sun sets over Australia’s spiritual heartland. Illuminating the outback every night, Field of Light covers an area greater than four football fields on land owned by Ayers Rock Resort, part of Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia. The installation is positioned about 18 kilometres from the north side of Uluru. Longitude 131° is delighted to be an event partner in Field of Light and to share this magical experience for our guests with exclusive access.
About Bruce Munro British artist Bruce Munro is best known for producing large immersive light-based installations, which often employ a massing of components by the thousands. An artistic diarist, he has spent over 30 years collecting and recording ideas and images in his sketchbooks, which he returns to over time as source material. Language, literature, science, and music have also greatly influenced his work. Frequently, Bruce’s subject matter is his own experience of fleeting moments of rapport with the world and existence in its largest sense of being part of life’s essential pattern. His reoccurring motif is the use of light on an environmental scale in order to create an emotional response for the viewer. Born in London in 1959, he completed a B.A. in Fine Arts at Bristol in 1982. Shortly after he moved to Sydney where he worked in design and lighting, inspired by Australia’s natural light and landscape. Returning to England in 1992, he settled in Wiltshire, where together with his wife, Serena, raised four children. His work has been shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Waddesdon Manor, the Rothschild Collection, Buckinghamshire; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. It is held in museum collections internationally including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. brucemunro.co.uk
Artist's Statement The idea for Field of Light first landed in my sketch book in January 1992. I had been living in Australia for eight years, and my fiancée (now wife) Serena and I embarked on a camping farewell tour of Australia prior to our return to England. While camping at Uluru, the Red Centre seemed to radiate ideas like heat, and I dreamed of an artwork that would bloom at night, like dormant desert seeds responding to rain. It was an idea that stubbornly stayed lodged in my mind over the succeeding years, but I didn’t have any opportunity to make a large version until 2004, in the field behind my house in rural Wiltshire. We left it up for a year to test it, and people began popping up at odd times to visit it, and that’s when I began to notice that the gentle movement of the lights, not shimmering but almost breathing, created a response. The installation seems to inspire many thoughts and ideas; it brings people together and most importantly makes people smile, a worthy epitaph for a moment of inspiration in life’s journey.
LONGITUDE 131º / RESERVE@BECKONS.COM / +61 2 9918 4355 / LONGITUDE131.COM.AU / BECKONS.COM
1