Public space

PASSAGE

Principal author

Aleksandra Stratimirovic

Collaborators (team members)

Sorina Jecza, Alexandra Maier

External collaborators

Lucian Crăciun, Marius Constantin, Liviu Ștefan, Attilla Levay

Project year

2017

Location

Timișoara

Client

Fundația Triade

Budget

17000euro

Project description

PASSAGE is a path that connects imaginary places, proposing dynamic light as a medium for public art. While the design appears to be a simple solution, it is clear there was significant thought, testing and light programming that went into creating the final animated tunnel effect that invited the visitors to follow the path. The artist was inspired by the distinct architectural simplicity of the bridges, the rhythmic location of the beams and their pillars, and the diversity of imaginary spaces that appear under the bridges. Both in their own and figurative sense, bridges connect and disconnect people and places. The passage under the bridge creates an intangible but visible, existing or imaginary pathway that opens a gateway into imagination. It symbolizes the opening that creates opportunities, the directions we should follow out of the desire to fulfill our dreams. The dynamic temporary light installation was located in one of the locations identified by the "Masterplan for Art" project from 2016, representing one of those places without prestige, but with a potential highlighted in the research analysis undertaken, being included on one of the visibility routes of the Art Encounters Biennial in 2017, constituting a mediation topic that the biennial proposed. Responding to the Biennial theme, Life - a user’s manual, the project completed the range of everyday practices to which the curators referred, by involving an artistic object in the everyday life of people, in the mental and visual space that inhabits the trajectories of the inhabitants of Timișoara. Starting from the belief that only when populated, space becomes a place of the human, its crossing implying a clear symbolic position, recognizable by the passers-by, the location took into account both the needs of the local communities and the artist's wishes to access a new public, able to relate to and complement their ideas. The temporary installation managed to change the reality for this urban landscape, transforming it into a place of self-reflection. Starting from the theme of light (present as the nodal point of the concept of the European Capital of Culture 2021), the installation proposed to offer a model of urban reintegration of a seemingly residual space, giving it the function to coagulate the interest of the community, as well to initiate and sustain the "center-periphery" dialogue, to extend the cultural routes of the city across its central boundary, to widen the public space.

Text description of the author

Aleksandra Stratimirovic is active in the world of art and light. She graduated in Applied Arts and Design at the University of Arts in Belgrade and completed her studies in specialized lighting design at Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design and KTH – Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She is the author of the series of temporary and permanent light-art installations for numerous public places (hospitals, school campuses, railway stations, residential areas, etc.) in Sweden and abroad. In recent years her artworks have been included in exhibitions at the Konstnärshuset in Stockholm, Jardin du Palais Royal in Paris, Guggenheim Museum, New York, and various institutions in Amsterdam, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Tokyo, Osaka, Verona, Tallinn, and Singapore, London. Over the years, Aleksandra has received numerous national and international awards. She is co-founder of the "Lighting Guerrilla" festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, founding member of the Transnational Lighting Detectives, founder and artistic director of the event Belgrade of Light in Serbia.

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