It’s summer in the city, and that means heat, skin, long walks, outdoor cinema, ice cream and long days. More light – a good thing in a time when people are feeling dark and annoyed a lot of the time. Enter Beforelight – a group of young, innovative, renegade artists, who have just set up their latest installation right here in Thessaloniki. And their timing couldn’t be better.
What did they do the first time they were here? Oh nothing much. Just collected a bunch of old lighting fixtures and turned one of the oldest parts of the city into a dream. An absolute dream. But don’t take my word for it. Let the photos speak for themselves:
They just recently had this up in Athens, and people loved it there, as much as they loved it here. Team Beforelight is: Eliza Alexandropoulou, Dimitra Aloutzanidou, Cristina Ampatzidou, Konstantina Evangelou, Kelly Efraimidou, Dimitris Theocharoudis, Maria Lazaridou, Vasilis Ntovros, and Eirini Steirou. They look like this:
Their own description of what they do is most appropriate here. From their website:
Beforelight conceptualizes, designs, and applies light art and design, in an effort to encourage public collective experience with natural or artificial light. They follow a process that takes light specifically into account, along with the innovative use of old and new lighting devices.
Which brings me to their latest innovation. They’ve measured the width and height of Thessaloniki’s White Tower, and created this on one of our newest squares, Filikis Etairias Street. The installation will be up for the next six months and looks something like this:
Their play on perspective highlights both the White Tower in all its glory, in addition to the recently renewed public square (one of many streets that have been converted as of late). It highlights our city’s attempt to create spaces people can enjoy on lovely summer nights like this one, without all of the traffic many of us have gotten so very sick of.
Bravo to team Beforelight! We thank you for your energy and dedication to the beautification of Greece’s public spaces. And we look forward to seeing more light in our city’s streets. Light and hope and beauty. Every little bit helps.
Until soon,
H
wandering muses 