The Perspex® brand team at our parent company Lucite International has announced its involvement in a very special installation for this year’s London Design Festival: Memory & Light by Arvo Pärt and Arup.
Taking place until 23rd September, the piece will be presented in the world's leading museum of art and design, the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) London, in the Norfolk House Music Room. It will be a multi-sensory installation bringing Pärt’s words to life in a meeting of design and music.
“I could compare my music to white light, which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.” - Arvo Pärt, Composer.
Full details of the project and use of Perspex® acrylic can be seen in the full press release below.
The Perspex® Brand are proud to announce they are a supporting sponsor of “Memory & Light”; a unique meeting of music and design by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and the world’s leading engineers and designers Arup.
A seamless unity of sound, light, colour, reflection, materials, texture and space, inspired by the words of Arvo Pärt:
“I could compare my music to white light, which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”
This beautiful description is visually represented by a curved transparent ‘screen’ of light, colour and reflection all made from Perspex® acrylic sheet to experience the beauty of contemporary design and music.
The screen – which is central to the installation and its narrative – has been made possible by material sponsorship from the Perspex® Brand. A prototype design by Arup’s Associate Product Designer Stephen Philips, the structure is designed to embrace and “envelop” the visitor in Pärt’s music. Fabricated by Talbot Designs, it represents – as a physical response to Pärt’s words – the prism of light and colour in the composer’s poetic description.
Positioned at the far end of the bench (by the Italian masters Poltrona Frau), the transparent screen is made up of vertical slats or “fins” of Perspex® acrylic, each one edged with a vibrant colour: five colours in all chosen by Arup to represent the full colour spectrum and presented in an alternating sequence.
These colours are brought to life in the Music Room through an innovative lighting design incorporated into the screen by Arup’s Ed Elbourne, a specialist in theatre and venue design.
In the words of Stephen Philips:
“It is a high screen that surrounds the listening bench, and we have mixed up the colours of the screen using Perspex® acrylic from the Vario collection, illuminating it from within. … I felt that this represented Arvo Pärt’s music very well because his pieces are very subtle and emotional. So the transparent material we have used for the screen is perfect; it’s a minimal material in the sense that it doesn’t block the visitor’s views of the Norfolk House Music Room. The screen is definitely a focal point, but it’s not a big statement; it’s subtle. … The Perspex® acrylic is a highly reflective material so it should complement the mirrors very well, bringing out the sparkle of the 18th-century music salon, and you should get lovely reflections of the Norfolk House Music Room in the screen … It’s a contemporary response to something that is very precious, an interior, and to precious pieces of music as well.”
With the Perspex® Brand’s wonderful contribution to this project, “Memory & Light” can become the continuous dialogue that we have envisioned: a conversation between the senses, between past and present, music and design, and between colour, material, space and light, bringing to life the words and moving sounds of Arvo Pärt.
Project Image Copyright: Arup
Credits
Project Curator of “Memory & Light” - Clare Farrow
Presented by Harman Kardon
Supported by Perspex® Brand, Estonia 100, Hiscox
Further support by Poltrona Frau, Talbot Designs, Elf Ideas, ENTTEC, Arvo Pärt Centre, ECM Records and Blueprint Magazine