Blue Pyramid, a new installation by world-renowned light artist Kari Kola can be seen for four nights from 31 August to 3 September at Inota Festival, on the site of a former thermal power plant in Várpalota. The Finnish artist, whose new production will be presented with the support of FinnAgora, the Finnish Institute in Hungary, has been working with light art for almost two decades. He has designed more than two thousand successful light projects at locations including the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Stonehenge in England, Villa de Laak in Eindhoven and Saana in Finland, the mythical fell of the Sami, towering 1,029 metres above sea level. In 2017, on the centenary of Finnish independence, Kola projected a five-kilometre-wide ultramarine light installation to Saana.
Kari Kola’s productions include works composed for dance performances as well as outdoor installations, most of which are inspired by the location. His installations often draw attention to UNESCO heritage sites, to forgotten treasures of architecture: his work has brought new light – literally – to parks, churches, bridges and a closed mine. Botania, the botanical garden of his Joensuu estate, is home to the annual Visual Festival and his astonishing special projects: in January 2022, he and his team became the first in the world to carve a scale replica of Stonehenge out of ice and then cast it with light.
“Nothing is impossible; it’s just a matter of determination how much energy we put into making it happen”, is the Finnish artist’s motto, and it’s no surprise that he considers monumentality his speciality. His current Blue Pyramid project, a light installation framing the 65-metre high cooling towers of the former Inota thermal power plant, is unique in that it not only treats the surface of the massive structures as a projection screen, but also the surrounding open air. The dimensions of the installation are illustrated by the fact that the festival organisers had to obtain prior permission from the aviation authorities, as the lights can reach up to 1,000 metres. Kola’s own reflectors, each with a luminous flux of one million lumens, of which 24 will be arranged in four groups, will provide such a powerful light intensity that on a clear day the light show will be visible from as far as Veszprém, more than twenty-five kilometres away.
The Inota Festival is an international all-arts programme in the framework of the Veszprém – Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture.
Photo © Dániel Besnyő, Veszprém – Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture