Project Overview
TAPESTRY OF LIGHT is a new artwork rendered on a breathtaking, epic scale. This internationally significant work is a giant illuminated tapestry, 36 X 3 metres long, and is opening in Brussels, April 2017.
This internationally significant work is a giant illuminated tapestry, spread across 14 panels, 36 metres long by 3 metres high, made from glowing fibres of threads and light especially constructed using nanoparticle technology developed at the RMIT Design Research Institute.
Four years in focused development and existing somewhere between art, science and design, the completed artwork will be an extraordinary illuminated reimagining of the medieval Angers Tapestries of the Apocalypse, one of the only full cycles by a female artists in over 700 years!
Artist's Vision
"As we stepped into a new century, a ripple of apprehension seemed to move out around the globe. It heralded goodwill, hopes, dreams, vast increases in knowledge and technology, a new era -
I stood in front of the Angers Tapestry of the Apocalypse in France around the same time; its scale, complexity and poetry were overwhelming. In that moment I imagined a new work of art, one that would be radiant and glowing, a massive new articulation of the book of the Apocalypse also in tapestry. Something that would envelope and immerse people in light; a work which would be experienced and 'read' in multiple ways, a new uncovering of an ancient text combining lineages of tradition and contemporary cutting edge technology. The time is now here.
One could not get a more highly qualified team in the fields of Art and Science, Medieval Scholarship and Contemporary texts, and the fabricators of the Illuminated Tapestry. I hope that everyone interested can participate in some way in this project, in the artwork, publication and film."
- Irene Barberis