Art’s Mental Space
A
rchitects of Air, founded by Alan Parkinson, is a company that designs pneumatic sculptures where visitor can tour the designs and share a space drenched in color and endless shapes. As artistic director, Alan has given this type of sculpture the generic name of “luminarium”—and just as a fish moves through water in an aquarium so visitors to luminaria journey in light. Recalling how the company came about, Alan says: “Prior to 1992, I had been working as the leader of a project that built inflatable structures. It was a social project with charitable status that was designed to serve people with special needs and disadvantaged communities, and its workforce was offenders who had been sentenced to do community service.” The project folded in 1992, but Alan was determined to
continue. “I settled on the name ‘Architects of Air’ as a way to signify the scale of what I wanted to do, and I also wanted to remove the stigma (at least one that existed in my eyes) of inflatables as being trivial things for kids.” Alan describes entering a luminarium as a simple experience, where you are enveloped and cut off from the outside world, maybe a bit lost as you encounter elements of radiant light and color. They’re all elements that can be experienced elsewhere—going camping, in a forest, looking at the clouds lit in the sky. “Some visitors my go in not knowing what they will find and will leave having found nothing. Others may go in having found consolation, inspiration, and peace,” Alan says. “Fortunately, the overwhelming response is that people will come out with a smile on their faces for whatever reason.”
ArtDiction | 12| July/August 2020
