Mountain Lights is a large-scale, immersive light art installation by the internationally acclaimed British artist Bruce Munro.
They are displayed along the summer-dormant ski slopes of Hanazono, and the light illuminating the foot of Mt. Niseko Annupuri is an art form of a genre unique to Bruce Munro, not unlike “illumination”.
In 2024, the third year of the exhibition, the world of Mountain Lights will be further expanded with the two new large-scale exhibitions. The first addition is “Moon Blooms,” 1,000 color-changing lights that appear after the gondola ride, and the second is “Prismatic Spring,” an exhibit that appears at the midpoint of “Arrow Spring,” Mountain Lights’ largest work, and colors the sky above. This series of works will add the elements of color and sound to the previously monochromatic Mountain Lights.
Feel the light art that Munro has created inspired by the topography, geology, mythology and a pinch of artistic licence of Niseko, where volcanoes, snow, and ice have been creating for millennia. Hanazono is the only place in Japan where Bruce Munro’s work has been on view.
The art to feel, from above and below
There are two ways to view Mountain Lights. Once you enter the venue, we recommend that you first take a gondola ride. From above, you can admire the soft swirls of light spreading at the foot of the mountain and climbing up the mountain slope. Stepping out of the gondola cabins, visitors will walk slowly through the lights, communing intimately with them, with the atmosphere and with nature.
The light produced by electricity is considered a modern formation of “fire,” and Mountain Lights embodies the “shared human experience” through fire.
Concept
The inspiration
The light is the modern formation of “fire”.
In Hokkaido, the indigenous Ainu population regard fire as a powerful entity, and one of life’s most essential elements. This is because it helps provide warmth and nourishment to human beings. In this belief, the hearth goddess, Kamuy-huci, is closely watching over our lives with love and compassion. The hearth fire is believed to be a portal and Kamuy-huci acts as the gatekeeper, communicating between the spirit world and our own.
Similarly, the Cadrigal People, the indigenous inhabitants of what is now the city of Sydney, use the word to “Putuwa” to express their love and compassion to others. Putuwa by definition is to warm one’s hands over a fire and then transfer the heat by taking the hand of another person.
The volcanic landscape of Niseko is a potent reminder that snow, ice, and fire are dancing partners in the creation of the earth that we inhabit. Mountain Lights is also a reminder that the molten core of the earth comes from the stars, as do we.
Each beautifully lit light is awakens a sense of empathy and well-being that human beings possess, which we hope will be transmitted to visitors through light
-Bruce Munro-
Arrow Spring and Future Light
The basic element of most of Mountain Lights’ works is a single object called a “fireflies,” consisting of 24 fiber-optic cables. The largest work, “Arrow Spring,” is a series of fireflies, which formed a 1.3 km-long ribbon of light with 180,000 points of light. The organic curves of light on the surface of the mountain form a spiral of light in the bowl at the foot of the mountain. This work is a direct expression of the land formed by lava flowing from the volcano.
“Future Light” is dotted regularly along the edge of the bowl topography at the foot of the mountain. The work is a collection of fireflies assembled and reflected on a stainless steel base shaped like the calyx of a plant. The sculpture was designed to embody the aforementioned concept of “putuwa” and to transmit a sense of empathy and happiness to the visitors.
Moon Blooms with color and sound…
Moon Blooms, a new film to be released in 2024, is an iteration of “Field of Light,” which has become Bruce’s signature work and expanded around the world. Reminiscent of the snow covering the land of Hanazono, it is a piece that Munro intuitively felt would be a desirable addition to Mountain Lights.
The first feature of this work is the changing colors. Just as plants that wait patiently under the snow sprout with the arrival of spring, the addition of color to a previously monochromatic work makes the beginning of a new chapter even more spectacular and vibrant.
The second feature is the soundtrack. The addition of an ethereal soundtrack, inspired by the changing light of the day, celebrates the life force of this land and all living things.
Prismatic Spring
The second work to be unveiled in 2024 is Prismatic Spring. Installed at the midpoint of Arrow Spring, it will be a series of works that will be displayed suspended above the light ribbon of Arrow Spring.
Clusters of stainless steel “orchid fireflies” form 69 tree-lined paths. Like Arrow Spring, the elements are constant, like the mountain stream, but in this instance the fireflies are suspended and colorful, drawing visitors’ focus from the ground to the heavens.
The “fireflies” spreading out before your eyes will give you an even more immersive experience in the world of the work.
Artist
BRUCE MUNRO
British artist Bruce Munro is best known for immersive large-scale light-based installations inspired largely by his interest in shared human experience.
Message
I first discovered light as a medium after graduating art school with a degree in fine art and then working in Australia as a research and development designer for a lighting company. I found myself doing that in Australia, manufacturing display signs using a glowing, ultraviolet plastic the properties of which I just loved. I work with light because working with a medium that is so very pure has enabled me to express many of my ideas that filled my head and my sketchbooks.
In my early forties, I began making personal things using repurposed manufacturing components and light. I realized that I had always been striving to be so different, to make my art different; but starting then, I began looking for shared experience. I had recorded moments and memories of feeling at one with the world for the past 40 years—and I realized that could be expressed by light.
Our experiences of being connected to the world in its largest sense, of being part of an essential pattern, became my subject matter.