Daan Roosegaarde’s latest artwork GROW is an homage to the beauty and importance of agriculture. In the world film premiere GROW appears as a luminous dreamscape. Red and blue lights wash like waves over an enormous field surrounded by darkness. GROW is inspired by science exploring how certain “recipes” of light can improve plants’ growth and resilience.
Daan Roosegaarde on How Cutting-edge Light Design Can Contribute to Sustainability
Most of the time we hardly notice the huge areas of the Earth which are literally feeding us. GROW highlights the importance of innovation in the agriculture system: How can cutting-edge light design help plants grow more sustainably? How can we make the farmer the hero?
GROW consists of a design-based light recipe that shines vertically across 20,000m2 of farmland with leek (Allium porrum). You experience the artwork as ‘dancing lights’ across the huge agricultural field. The light is poetic, and inspired by photobiology light science technologies which have shown that certain recipes of blue, red, and ultraviolet light can enhance plant growth and reduce the use of pesticides by up to 50%.
Reframing the Landscape As a Living Cultural Artwork
The film GROW (which can be viewed on the website from Studio Roosegaarde) shows the development of this luminous dreamscape and how the beauty of light can help plants. GROW can be good for nature but also sends hopeful light to people. It gives a new meaning to the word ‘agri-culture’ by reframing the landscape as a living cultural artwork.
Artist Daan Roosegaarde:
"GROW is the dreamscape which shows the beauty of light and sustainability. Not as a utopia but as a protopia, improving step by step.”
Creating a Better World Through Art and Science
GROW is part of the artist-in-residence program of Rabobank. Daan Roosegaarde and his team of designers and experts developed GROW over two years, informed by expert knowledge sessions at Studio Roosegaarde, Wageningen University & Research, Springtij Forum, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is the first in a series of dreamscapes by Studio Roosegaarde which shows the beauty of combining art and science to create a better world.
All photos by Studio Roosegaarde.
