Solar Ark Description
Two fundamental elements that shape people’s experience on a lake during a Minnesota winter are ice and sunlight. The Solar Ark Shanty is a vessel for encountering the sun that will provide opportunities for people to alter the sun’s relationship to the frozen lake. The shanty has a digitally fabricated wall, oriented to the sun’s path, which allows visitors to perceive the environment both as setting and as symbol. By collectively filtering light via the fabricated wall, visitors both obscure and clarify the sun’s role in its severe winter environment. Sunlight becomes an artistic medium that can provoke contemplation. As a record of the project, a series of time-lapse films will be created that combine daily cycles of light and visitors’ interactions with it.
“The Neolithic concept of a solar barge, the sun as traversing the sky in a boat is found in the later myths of ancient Egypt.” - Solar deity, Wikipedia
