Spark BILBAO, organic fireworks by Studio Roosegaarde

Fireworks are both a blessing and a curse. We enjoy their wonderful choreographies of light marking special events, but we now know that they are not very sustainable. From the emissions they produce to the noise that frightens animals, fireworks have been the subject of a lot of controversy in recent years, quite apart from the fact that public fireworks displays have largely been banned due to the pandemic.
Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde, founder of Studio Roosegaarde, has always been fascinated by light and by sustainability, and he has come up with a new way of expressing our desire for beauty and celebration inspired by the magical lights of fireflies, which offer us a poetic but silent light show on summer evenings. The result is SPARK Bilbao, a poetic performance in which thousands of biodegradable light sparks float organically through the air.
SPARK is the fourth project in the DreamScapes series with Media.Monks in which a dream becomes reality to create a better world. The top three DreamScapes are GROW, a tribute to beauty and to the importance of agriculture which makes use of light in a scientific way for two purposes: reducing pesticide use and promoting awareness of agriculture, Urban Sun, an installation based on scientific research and inspired by sunlight, which uses far-UVC, a special kind of light capable of eliminating viruses, and Seeing Stars, which brings the view of the starry sky at night back to our cities. 
In the new SPARK project, Daan Roosegaarde transforms conventional polluting ways of celebrating, such as fireworks, paper lanterns, drones and confetti, into a new form of sustainable celebration. Through a combination of design and technology, thousands of sparks of light made of biodegradable materials forming a 50 x 30 x 50 metre cloud are silently blown about by an ever-changing wind. The choreography reflects the world of nature: fireflies, flocks of birds and galaxies of stars, offering a show of great visual impact without disturbing the peace and quiet of the night or creating unhealthy smoke.
The project will be part of the Wellbeing Summit for Social Change coming up June 1 through 3, 2022 in Bilbao, Spain, the world’s first event promoting individual and collective well-being through everything from neuroscience to the visual and performing arts. SPARK was launched recently, just before the Chinese New Year celebrations, as a sustainable alternative for community events.
SPARK Bilbao, like the other three projects in the DreamScapes series, uses a poetic gesture to invite everyone to get on board for the trip to an ecological future in which the traditions we love so much evolve for the good of all, without sacrificing any of their beauty. 

Christiane Bürklein

Project: Studio Roosegaarde
Location: Bilbao, Spain
Year: 2022
Film: Media.Monks directed by Jan Kooyman and Jos van Meerveld. 
Images: Roberto Conte