Light Sensors

The fragile installation My darling of Karilee Fuglem subtly engages the industrial architecture of the old foundry. The artist responds to the expansiveness and ampleness of the place with lightness and finesse fluctuating the visible and the invisible. Like the Tao who favors the balancing of the full and the empty as the foundation of all harmony, Karilee Fuglem fills the Darling Foundry with an immaterial work. "In the past few years, I have been making work that aims to articulate space as a non-visible fullness," says the artist who has installed, from the highest point in the building, hundreds of threads difficult to see. Their height and their multitude¹, their varied reflections of light, compose a translucent mass that materializes an imposing emptiness². Opaque and transparent materials, nylon or silicone string, vinyl membranes, lenses and puddles of water intercept the light and at times reflect the sun rays. Thus, a secret universe comes into existence, intimate, organic and encompassing, inviting the visitor to a new reading of the space..

When the Darling Foundry was still in ruins³, the rain would infiltrate through the half destroyed windows and by the holes in the roofing. The water would freely flow according to new trajectories, re-oriented by various obstacles. Drops would materialize in the light, then accumulate in certain places⁴. Like crystalline rain, the work of Karilee Fuglem reminds me of that period. The references to the past, connected to the site's location, equally punctuate, though through another means, the installation, to which the title My Darling is dedicated. Karilee Fuglem obtained from the neighborhood's history diverse characters, to whom she pays homage by inscribing their names on small pieces of transparent vinyl. These are attached to the nylon strings, pointing in the direction of the relevant historical fact. At times they glimmer like fireflies implying their ephemeral passage on this earth.

Caroline Andrieux
Artistic Director, Darling Foundry

1. at the height of 38 feet (approximately 12.5m), between 600 and 700 strings have been placed.
2. "The Darling Foundry is pretty intimidating in scale but I want to show how intimate it can be." Karilee Fuglem.
3. From 1999 to 2001, Quartier Éphémère had a construction trailer installed in protest for the preservation of the Darling Foundry.
4. French artist in residence, Serge Provost, drew inspiration from this for his work "Water Puddles" (2000-2002), which is a permanent work in the Darling Foundry. These are three lead elements, integrated within the new cement floor at the time of the renovations in 2002. They represent the casting of holes of the old paving, that rainy days had shaped into puddles.