International flair meets rural charm: Lights in Alingsas 2011: international cooperation and interdisciplinary thinking make for boundless creativity

摘要

Alingsas is a quiet nest 50 kilometres north-east of Gothenburg. For five weeks every autumn streams of international visitors flock to the little Swedish town from all over the world, locals defy the dark and cold and venture out onto the streets as autumn takes its hold, would-be lighting designers create amazingly sensitive installations in their own gardens, teams of international students clad in uniform weatherproof jackets are seen all over town, climbing trees, clambering up ladders on house fronts, crawling around under bushes... That can only mean one thing: the Lights in Alingsas workshop is underway! The results of the 2011 five-day workshop, during which the lighting concepts for the Lights in Alingsas exhibition are developed and realised, reflect the colourful mix of over 40 participants from 14 different nations with their innovative lighting concepts. The selected sites were places and buildings in the public realm that have a special meaning for the people of Alingsas, partly for reasons of infrastructure, partly for historical reasons - which is why it was important for the workshop teams to find creative lighting design solutions that would generate a user-friendly ambience through light. A key requirement for the workshop was that the designs behind the installations were based on a sound, comprehensible concept.