World’s Largest Light Artwork Unites Art, Science and Finnish Innovation in Australia

Kari Kola is the world’s most renowned light artist. He has illuminated Stonehenge, which only a handful of people saw in person but tens of millions saw through news coverage worldwide. In Paris, he lit up UNESCO’s headquarters twice: once for the International Day of Light and once for the opening ceremony of the International Year of Light. In Ireland, he illuminated an entire mountain as part of Galway’s European Capital of Culture programme in 2020. His work is built on a story and an understanding of light as art and as technology.  

This year, Kari created his biggest work ever for the bicentenary of Albany, a city on the southern coast of Western Australia. The piece was called Lighting the Sound, named after King George Sound, the stretch of ocean it illuminated right in front of the city.

Albany may have been marking its bicentenary, but the area’s history goes much further back than that. The Menang Noongar people were here long before the first British arrivals, and Albany was one of the first places where cooperation between cultures took hold. Respect for the First Nations people was visible everywhere, including Kari Kola’s work.

“The design process demanded real focus. I had to study the land, the climate, the history, the culture. My first visit was about a year before the lights went on in Albany. After that I made two more trips, and a lot of things took their final shape during those visits. The theme of the work, for instance, came from a local plant, the bloodroot, which in the Menang language carries the same name as the people themselves,” Kari explains.

The installation lit up about 15 kilometres of coastline. The dominant colours were red and green, drawn from the bloodroot. The work used 15 red lasers with a combined output of 2.6 million lux. The 750 LED units were custom-built for the event, each tuned to a shade of green chosen by the artist and built to deliver that colour at maximum brightness.

The lights stood in Torndirrup National Park. Thirteen towers were built, ranging from 6 to 20 metres tall, so the beams cleared the treetops and disturbed local wildlife as little as possible. The impact of the work, and any traces it might leave behind, was reviewed with local authorities and researchers.

The story travelled faster than the light

The event drew interest well in advance, especially in Australia. Kari appeared on national broadcasts and in local publications. In Albany, the centrepiece of the year-long celebration was the world’s largest work of light art, and tens of thousands of people were expected to attend. A Finnish light artist became a public figure whose name was known by local taxi drivers and cultural leaders. The event was produced by the Australian arts organisation FORM, an active partner in both communications and construction.

When the lights came on this past March, the reception was awestruck. Social media and news coverage exploded: hundreds of articles, radio segments, and video posts. Editorial coverage alone reached 19.6 million people.

“All in all, the work came together: an excellent team, top-class production, and good people around it. But for me personally, the biggest moment was when the Menang elders were touched by my artwork,” says Kari.

A work of light art as a platform for connection

Kari Kola is a brand ambassador for the Finnish city of Joensuu. Around the world, he represents the city and the regional photonics community. Joensuu is a university city with more than 50 years of photonics research behind it. It is home to Finland’s only Master of Science programme in photonics, the headquarters of Photonics Finland and the European Optical Society, and is one of Europe’s strongest hubs in micro- and nanophotonics. The links between research and industry here are unusually tight. Kari is an active part of this network.

A small delegation from the City of Joensuu, the university, and local businesses travelled to see the work. The group, travelling under the Light from Joensuu banner, visited the installation as well as scientific institutions and companies across Western Australia. The aim was to build international interest in photonics and create new contacts with students, researchers, and companies.  

“It’s about 14 000 kilometres from Albany to Joensuu. The distance sounds wild, but meeting in person is still more productive in many ways than trading emails. Kari’s work, together with the evening event we hosted with the Embassy of Finland, opened up conversations that simply wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And the visits to universities and companies led to concrete openings for cooperation,” says Markku Pyykkönen, director of marketing for the City of Joensuu and one of the delegation members.

Light from Joensuu has its own website, where you can watch videos of how Kari’s artwork came together, read news articles, and learn more about what Joensuu offers as a photonics city.