The venue, once the largest sorting office for the Royal Mail in London, now serves as an events space hosting private events, fashion shows, and exhibitions. For Here Today... the space was completely transformed with additional walls, scenic pieces, and lighting. Made up of eight distinct chapters, the exhibit's path takes visitors on a multi-media journey which includes paintings, sculpture, projection, and performance art. Curators Artwise called upon lighting designer Tupac Martir of Satore Studios to illuminate the entire project while White Light provided the lighting equipment, rigging, control, and on-site support needed to make the transformation complete.
Martir approached the design with an initial walk-through of the space, deciding on lighting for each room in succession, with respect to its place in the visitor's journey, then examining the design as a complete package. "It's not just about lighting each work on its own - I had to consider how each space fit, what came before and after, and how the audience was going to interact with each piece," Martir explained.
To realise the lighting design, Martir worked closely with White Light's Dominic Yates who oversaw the lighting installation and programming teams for White Light. The final design consisted of a mixture of LED and tungsten sources with products including ETC Source Four Mini profiles and Source Four Lustr+ LED profiles, Chromlech Elidy LED washes, and ADB Lighting ALC4 wash lights. White Light also provided Prolyte trussing for the project, which was installed on-site in less than 24 hours, giving the other production crews more time for the scenic build.
Having worked with White Light previously, Martir describes why the Here Today... project was a perfect fit for the company, usually known for its work in both theatre and events markets: "This was a project where we needed an impeccable standard of kit and a crew that could be flexible to handle any changes. With White Light's background dealing with high profile clients, sensitive spaces, and fast paced events - I wouldn't have picked anyone else for the job! When it came to dealing with any changes, their London location was able to provide additional deliveries with no time wasted."
The team also worked with the exhibit's production manager Trevor Smith in order to integrate lighting with other production elements such as scenery and projection. Of the White Light team Smith said, "The team did everything asked of them and more - all in good humour."
The White Light team was on site for just over a week to complete the work ahead of opening night, which took place on 24 November.
(Jim Evans)
