Let there be light on all our fields
Artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde has created a work that could have an immense global message for how we can improve our food supply.
The light sculpture celebrates natural process and sets farmers as heroes
It would appear that light installations are not just for temporary aesthetic pleasures. In fact, they could greatly help sustainable food production.
The Rotterdam-based company Studio Roosegaarde, led by artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde, is showing that in its new project Grow. The installation applies light sculpture as a potentially revolutionary approach to agriculture that could be rolled out much more widely.
Grow is a light show set in a crop field (of leeks, as it happens). Besides giving aesthetic pleasure, the light source help the crops grow, by extending and intensifying the hours of light, and reduce the need for pesticides.
Grow appears as a 20,000 sq.m “luminous dreamscape” of red and blue waves of light
The installation harnesses the power of LED lights. These are carefully positioned in the field, around and through the planting. It applies custom engineered “light recipes” that correlate to the needs of different crops.
Daan Roosegaarde explains: “Specific ultraviolet light activates the defence system of plants. And what is interesting is that it works on all crops.”
The Netherlands has been a major agricultural innovator – the small nation is in fact the second largest exporter of agriculture in the world. So this innovation may almost be expected.
However, there is potential, in these times of immense pressure for new approaches to sustainability, for Roosegaarde’s insight and vision to help change the way agriculture works.
Roosegaarde’s aim is to take the project around the world, so keep an eye out for a colourful crop near you.
