Light-fragments

for The Noguchi Museum + YMER&MALTA

Founded by one of 20thcentury’s most renowned sculptors, Isamu Noguchi, the Noguchi Museum is located in Queens, New York, displaying representative examples of his work. The “Akari Unfolded” exhibition featured works of 6 modern designers that gathered in homage to the Akari collection. Fabricated from handmade washi paper and bamboo, Akari is one of the most renowned works of Isamu Noguchi.

Many of the sculptures by Noguchi were carved directly from stone, thus he regarded Akari more as luminescent sculptures, rather than lighting equipment. Inspired by these facts, we imagined what if Akari had been carved directly from a massive form of light. It gave us an idea that the fragments from the carved stone should be beautifully luminous.

The first step of the creation process was to carefully hand-carve white acrylic boards gradationally, from opaque to translucent, until it ultimately became extremely thin and transparent. Then, the fragments have been enveloped as if they were floating inside a transparent acrylic cube, and by lighting these pieces externally, “light-fragments” were represented.

The concept of the Akari was to bring natural light into living spaces, and the corresponding Japanese character of 明(akari, light) is made up of two kanji elements, 日 (hi, sun) and 月 (tsuki, moon). This lamp replicates the relationship between the sun and the moon, the sun is the source of light, and fragments receiving the light. Since the sun cannot be seen when the moon is shining, it is designed so that the source of light is not exposed.

Leaning across the transparent acrylic is an 8mm aluminum pipe, LED lights are aligned inside and diffused to minimize their unevenness, this narrow channel of light is intended to concentrate the light into the acrylic, illuminating only the cube. Lastly, black was selected for the lamp legs, and a round black cap was put at the end to evoke the iconic Akari wire legs.

野口博物馆位于纽约皇后区，由20世纪最著名雕塑家之一的野口勇创立，馆内陈列着他的代表性作品。“ AkariUnfolded”展览展示了6名现代设计师的作品，这些作品是向Akari系列的致敬。

野口的许多雕塑都是直接用石头雕刻而成的，因此他将Akari视为发光的雕塑，而不是照明设备。受这种启发，我们设想了Akari直接由大量光束雕刻而成的可能性。这种可能性让带给我们一种思考，即石雕碎片可以以美丽发光体的形式存在。

*Akari由手工纸和竹子制成，是野口勇最著名的作品之一。

创作过程的第一步是仔细地手工雕刻白色丙烯酸板，从不透明到半透明，直到它最终变得非常薄和透明。然后，碎片被包裹起来，仿佛它们漂浮在一个透明的丙烯酸立方体中，通过外部照明，“光碎片”被呈现出来。

Akari的概念是将自然光线引入生活空间,和相应的日本的明(Akari、光)是由两个汉字元素,日(hi,太阳)和月(纪、月亮)。这盏灯复制了太阳和月亮的关系，太阳是光的来源，而碎片接受光。由于太阳在月亮发光时是看不见的，所以它的设计使光源不暴露出来。

穿过透明的亚克力是一根8毫米的铝管，LED灯在内部对齐并扩散，以减少其不均匀性，这个狭窄的光通道旨在将光线集中到亚克力上，只照亮立方体。最后，灯腿选择了黑色，并在最后放置了一个圆形的黑色帽子，以唤起标志性的Akari线腿。