Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
It’s early evening and we’re riding a bus from Banff, out onto darker roads. Environmental sounds fade up, blue and white lights flash on the ceiling, an Indigenous song drums in, and the narrative begins. We’re told that we’re in a national park on Treaty 7 land that’s been inhabited for thousands of years; spliced in are geological nuggets about the mountains.
This is Illuminations: Human / Nature, the layered “deep time travel” narrative extravaganza that’s been in development for over a year, a collaboration between artist, photographer and former Banff Centre facilitator, Sarah Fuller, and Moment Factory, a Montreal-based high-tech multimedia producer. It is conceptual, archival and site-specific, designed to be immersive and participatory.
We exit the bus at Lake Minnewanka, a dammed lake and tourist attraction northeast of Banff. It’s night now and there are 100 of us. In smaller groups, we’re directed into a blue cloud of rock-show smoke where bluer starlight sparkles on trees and on our faces and bodies. It is briefly magical.
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Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
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Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
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Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
We’re directed to a tent where we pick up tools: a lantern, portable projectors, a map, a backpack speaker, and off we go to find the five stations, located at small lit mushroom-like pods. Our lantern-bearer places the lantern on the first mushroom and the show there begins.
By one pod, we cluster in a bison pen to experience the animals’ 2017 reintroduction into Banff National Park. Our projectors help us hear and see the bison snorting and charging. At another location, we view a video animation of a village and ancient campsites that now lie at the bottom of Lake Minnewanka, a reservoir whose waters lap beyond the video screen.
Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
The finale comes when all participants gather at a fire pit. Trees, close and distant across a small inlet, are illuminated, creating an ethereal, compelling spectacle.
Sarah Fuller and Moment Factory, “Illuminations: Human / Nature,” 2017
multimedia project (photo courtesy Rita Taylor, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)
We gaze and wait for the other groups to arrive; sound effects and a disembodied voice repeat a distracting mantra – telling us we must wait, and what to do with our tools. Finally, all are gathered. Projections appear across the inlet and around the fire – a wolf, a teepee. The campfire flares up as we hear a final story that reveals the interconnectedness of nature. It ends quickly and feels anti-climactic. A keepsake booklet we’re given to read later amplifies the narratives.
This show was repeated over three nights from Oct. 5 to Oct. 7. Then it manifests in Rouge National Urban Park, near Toronto, from Oct. 19 to Oct. 21, with narratives related to that environment.
Illuminations is ambitious, innovative and carbon-neutral. It’s made by creative people with vision and integrity who consulted with scientists, naturalists and Indigenous groups. The technological, image-rich storytelling, though not offering interpretive depth, is intriguing. But it – not the stories, but the methods – felt, at times, like an imposition on the environment. The sometimes chaotic movement of participants, the logistical interruptions and the voice-over instructions kept disrupting my immersion. I’d anticipated absorbing, visceral magic.
