Illuminus

by Celina Colby

Bright lights and big ideas transformed the West End Street Railway Central Power Station and other buildings in the South End on a late October Saturday night. Boston’s first Nuit Blanche festival, put on by the Dorchester-based production company Materials & Methods, was a rousing success with thousands of viewers coming out to the SOWA area. Projections, light installations, emersion environments and performances by almost 40 artists were on view.

The event was truly a community collaboration. Although Jeff Grantz, the founder of Materials & Methods, did much of the heavy lifting, the artistic undertaking would have been impossible without the help of others. Monetarily Grantz had almost 20 sponsors donating money, time and equipment to the project. Local curators recommended artists to be featured to help build the number of exhibits available. Even GTI Properties, which owns several of the Harrison Avenue buildings used for the event, helped out by cutting some of the logistical red tape so Materials & Methods could stage the event.

The artists submitted proposals to Grantz and others pitching projects ranging in budget from $1,000 to $10,000. Unfortunately, the organization had only enough funding to stage the event, with no extra budget to stipend artists. The Boston Art Commission stepped in offering to pay each artist a modest amount for his or her project. Small sums or not, this gesture of good faith from the art commission bodes well for the Boston art scene.

Despite the small budgets, the artists were able to create some spectacular pieces. One installation by New American Public Art required viewers to one at a time, put their faces up to a camera that then projected the image onto a three-dimensional face outside. Another, titled Glitche was a maze of cotton ribbons suspended from the ceiling. As viewers weaved their way through the strands, videos were projected onto them to create a three-dimensional experience. Zoe Dance live streamed an underwater performance from inside the Boston Sports Club. Live music and interactive exhibits were featured as well, giving plenty of opportunities for the crowd to get involved.

There aren’t many video performances in Boston, and nothing quite like this fully immersive experience has debuted in the city before. Given the success of the event this year, Grantz hopes to host Illuminus again in October 2015. The event gave new artists a venue in which to show their work, plus an enormous crowd who enjoyed the experience. This was a museum without walls, a gallery exhibit that took over the streets of SoWa and made them into one moving, breathing, changing piece of art.

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Image Credit: Photos by Tina Tian, courtesy of Illuminus Boston.
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Celina Colby is the editorial assistant at Art New England and the editor and founder of Trends and Tolstoy.