Nacre

A part of Vivid Sydney 2018, Nacre takes inspiration from the many shell middens found during excavations of Sydney’s Barangaroo precinct. The middens revealed that the site was once a rich source of cockles, mussels and molluscs, which were gathered by fisherwomen from local Aboriginal communities. In creating Nacre the aim was to honour Aboriginal people and highlight the role that sustainable principles, such as those practised by traditional users of the natural world can play in protecting fragile marine environments.

The installation incorporates a reef-like membrane structure laden with dichroic seashell forms, resembling the pearlescent shimmer and refraction of nacre on molluscs. The membrane is shaped and anchored by a CNC-milled waffle structure skeleton, which also support the array of LED bulbs. These bulbs are placed according to an optimization algorithm, as well as the seashells.

The lighting scenario of the installation is to translate real sea waves into light and color, where the spectators are introduced to a view of nature and technology relating and interacting. This is realized by capturing wave data from the Barangaroo shores by help of a custom sensor system, a floating array of buoys housing accelerometers. The recorded stream of values are then turned into a color map recreating the waves in light, with a color palette incorporating nacreous, irridescent hues.

The 1000+ seashell forms adorning the membrane, consisting of algorithmically situated 4 modular sizes and fabricated with vacuum forming and laminating acrylic sheets with dichroic film, interfere with the light in unexpected and spectacular ways thanks to their material and shape,