“A ream of paper scatters in a gust of wind, soaring high into the black winter night, every sheet glowing bright, against a backdrop of the most exquisite 17th century architecture. The site is the grand courtyard of Lyon’s Hotel de Ville, and the occasion is the city’s annual Festival of Light, a winter tradition drawing thousands of visitors to its festive attractions. In both scale and technique, this installation by designer Paul Cocksedge is an ambitious project.
“Bourrasque” measures 25 metres in length and reaches over 15 metres at its highest point. The 200 A3-sized sheets are made from electroluminescent (EL) material, a technology which has recently advanced rapidly to produce a range of sophisticated colour temperatures, in thin and extremely flexible sheets. Each of these double-sided sheets has been individually moulded by hand in London, and then assembled on site in a structure of extraordinary finesse and detail barely visible to the human eye.”