As we role into 2017 our Light Painting Art Form is growing faster than ever before. The opportunities that are available to artist across the world have never been greater. One organization that stands on the forefront of creating opportunities for Light Painting Artist is the Light Painting World Alliance! Since 2010 LPWA has worked to build the light painting community by collecting artist profiles, connecting artist, hosting exhibitions, live shows, historical lectures, photo booths, and massive collaborations.
Just a few years ago events specifically for Light Painting were unheard of but thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like Sergey Churkin, the Light Painting World Alliance Advisory Board and its local representatives the opportunities are growing each year! The LPWA is free to join and its free to participate in the numerous opportunities that LPWA offers. I think one of the events that really exemplify the true spirit of the LPWA organization and the Light Painting Art Form is the massive collaborations so I wanted to share some of those…
A little history on the Massive collaborations. The first collaboration was directed by Jadikan at the 2nd LPWA worldwide exhibition in Paris (2013), when 20 artists all together created a Light Painting animation on Place Concorde. This began a ongoing theme of creating these monumental collaborations at different events the LPWA organized. In 2014 at the 1st LighArt Congress organized by Alfredo Alvarez and the LPWA in Oviedo Spain 34 artists created the IYOL 2015 logo under the direction of Alfredo Alvarez, Ivan Barco and Riders of Light.
2015 was the UNESCO International Year of Light and Light Based Technologies and LPWA was an official collaborating partner. There were 2 LPWA massive collaborations in 2015 the first was in Paris, on Tokyo Palace, and then in Dorum (Germany) a.k.a the LightHouse Meet-up, where 24 artists collaborated and light painted the IYoL 2015 logo over Nord Sea (location supervisor Joerg Miedza).
Most recently The Light Painting World Alliance organized a Massive Collaboration under the direction of LPWA China Representative Roy Wang. Roy worked for two years, connecting the people of China and the light painting art form. Roy’s great efforts gave the LPWA the unique possibility to manage the LPWA Longhushan 2016 Special Event, the 1st International LPWA exhibition in China!
Sergey of LPWA said “We were so lucky to visited that unique place! Longhushan is wonderful enclave declared Global Geopark by UNESCO, the birthplace of Taoism and modern resort area, legendary Tiger & Dragon Mountains.”
The LPWA event in Longhushan consisted of an International Light Painting Exhibition, A Massive LP Collaborations and a Light Painting Animation Project. The artist that participated were from all over the globe and they included The Lichtfaktor Team, Children Of Darklight Team and solo artists Darren Pearson, Mass and Diliz. Roy and Sergey completed this collective with all of their creative and organization skills.
The “Big Image” organization team consisted of Frodo Alvarez DKL, Edu Cajigal, Ivan Lucio, Sfhir, Nacho Cosio and Ramon Aser.
The most recent meet up brought a team of International Light Painting Artist to Hobgoblins Playground in the Nevada Desert. The participants included Sergey & Natalia Churkin (Russia), Dan Whitaker (UK), Derek Lawrence (Canada), Roy Wang (China), Alfredo Alvarez, Sfhir, Fernando Heras Castan – all from Spain, David Hull, Christina Vasquez, Andrius Sprindys, Todd Blaisdell, Chris Bauer, Kristen Schlecht, Bill Burk, Heather Marie, Marisa Bisping + Nathan, Brooke LaBrie, Matthew Scherfenberg – all from USA, and Ivan Fodor (Slovakia).
The team had two shots in mind that they wanted to accomplish the first was “Light River”. The idea of Light River was to illustrate the importance of water in a human’s life. Water, flowing through the empty and desiccated canyon – as symbol of all water reservoirs on the Earth. This beautiful image was created over the course of 3 hours and took 5 attempts to get!
The other collaboration image was called the Old Spanish Trail project. The Old Spanish National Historic Trail links Santa Fe and Los Angeles across six states and 2,700 miles. It traverses red rock mesas, passes below snow-capped peaks, and fords untamed rivers, avoiding the immense depths of the Grand Canyon and skirting the continent’s harshest deserts. Millions of people followed this trail since early 1600s in hope of a better future. To tribute this living road, created an epic light painting image, which is called “People Bring Their Light to California” – or shorter “Bringing Light to LA”.
These collaborations are just a small part of the opportunities that the Light Painting World Alliance offers to all light painters around the world! If you are not a part of the LPWA you can head over to their website HERE, sign up for free and start participating in some of these incredible opportunities!
Sergey says
Aaah, what a good vibes and perfect memories about every collab meeting 🙂 Thank you Jason for sharing this experience! I’m dreaming to make really huge worldwide collaboration for hundreds light painters! I believe, this will become true once a time!