I hope that passersby in St Andrews Square Gardens take the time to wander after nightfall through Bruce Munro’s Field of Light. Using 9,500 light frosted glass spheres rising from the ground on slender stems, Munro has created an unusual art installation which truly comes into its own when darkness falls.
The installation was inspired by a journey through central Australia in 1992. The iconic figure of Uluru “seemed to pulsate from the ground into my consciousness, materialising as a scribble in my notebook,†he says.
After graduating with a degree in Fine Art,  Munro started an illuminated display business for retailers and exhibitions, which he later sold, and worked in Research and Development, learning about manufacturing and production techniques. This enabled him to transform his scribbles, through the medium of light  into a number of incarnations, the first of which was installed in a field behind his Wiltshire home, to bloom at night “like dormant desert seeds responding to rain”. Field of Light has since appeared in a number of places, each time, slightly different. Slightly otherworldly, the changing colours feel like the pulse of a living, breathing, if not necessarily conscious, being.
He explains, “The Field of Light is a bit of a chameleon in that the space changes the work more than the work changes the space. This is an added bonus for me because each new iteration we create delivers new surprises and gives one the distinct feeling that there is life force pulsating within the installation.”
The free exhibition is on until 27th April and is being funded by the City of Edinburgh Council with support from Marketing Edinburgh and Essential Edinburgh. It has been conceived as an immersive experience, inviting people to wander through the recently developed St Andrew Square along the existing pathways and view the space in a new way.
What do you think of it?
