This short video explores the Bending Light interactive public art installation by Studio Lauren Zoll. View in 1080 HD for best results.

Bending Light, Sunburst at Summer Solstice sunset.

Bending Light, Sunburst with Reading Stations.

Reading Stations and Bending Light Publication

Bending Light Publication designed with Commercial Artisan

Light is something we all--humans, plants, animals--need and consume. Yet light can feel abstract and intangible. The artworks in Bending Light make light “visible” by demonstrating how light bends. Creatively combining transparent material with the surrounding natural environment demonstrates the physics principle known as refraction. The Sunburst installation serves as an oculus, which park-goers can look through, magnifying the environment around them. Engaging sunlight as it travels across the park from east to west, the art also acts as an abstracted sundial for regular visitors. This artwork changes the speed at which we actually see light by slowing it down. Radically important in our lives, light is an everyday material responsible for photosynthesis in plants, our own ability to see, and even the human need to synthesize light into our bodies.

Studio Lauren Zoll designed the project in the spring of 2020. During the pandemic she pivoted from a prior design to acrylic rods. While researching, Zoll came across a sketch by modernist architect Alvar Alto which helped synthesize Zoll’s Ideas. The sketch illustrated sunlight using sunburst imagery reaching a person who was lying ill in bed, and was the architect's response to a tuberculosis outbreak. The outbreak radically influenced architecture to embrace the outdoors and the healing power of sunlight; feeling akin to this prior era, Zoll used sunburst imagery to experiment with light refraction and healing in a public park.

In addition to the Sunburst, Studio LZ has created “reading stations” that repurpose previously existing utility poles. These reading stations have translucent rods where visitors can use Bending Light publication to see how words, colors, and patterns change through the material. Shelton Heights Greenspace visitors can bring a publication home, view it through a glass of water, and continue to explore the concept of refraction.