Published on: November 19, 2008

Linnaea Tillett enhances the ‘art of the encounter’ between strangers in public with light installations that transform our experience of the night. Principal of Tillett Lighting Design since 1984, she holds a doctorate in Environmental Psychology and has taught for 18 years at Parsons the New School for Design.

Linnaea’s work engages the complications of how people interact in nighttime public space, including the particular effects of light on the human nervous system. She says, “Light and shadow are not just visual phenomena. Light is of many senses, intricately intertwined with complex perceptions—whether they be of well-being or insecurity. Light is of our emotions and memories, ancient and new, fundamentally social and deeply personal.”

Linnaea often works at the intersection of art and infrastructure. She recently completed ‘This Way’, a permanent art installation on the Brooklyn Bridge and won a commission for an alternative transport overpass in Albuquerque. She has collaborated with artists and architects on numerous award-winning large-scale landscape projects, including Ecliptic/Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids, MI with Maya Lin and Quennell Rothschild Partners, and The Battery Bosque in Manhattan.

Linnaea collaborated with Kiki Smith and Lebbeus Wood for The Snow Show. Her work has been presented at Canadian Centre for Architecture, Columbia University, and River to River Festival (New York).

Linnaea’s clients include: New York City Department of Transportation, Parks Department, Housing Authority and Economic Development Corporation; Rail Partners (China); European Lighting Design Association; City of Syracuse; Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation; City of Stamford Parks Department; City of Grand Rapids Parks Department; First Presbyterian Church of New York; Society of Friends; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Morgan Library; Carlyle Hotel; and numerous private clients.

“This Way”
Brooklyn Bridge Underpass, 2008

This Way transforms the Bridge stairwell and underpass from a dark and forbidding ‘back door’ into a unique entrance to DUMBO. The artwork simultaneously performs aesthetically and practically—both place-making and way-finding.

Residents and visitors are engaged by linear light forms, which also guide them through the urban maze.

The areas under the Bridge along Washington and Prospects streets glow a distinctive blue from new sidewalk lighting. The art installation works in concert with new signage to improve the experience of visitors and residents passing through this significant threshold between the Bridge and Manhattan, DUMBO, and other parts of Brooklyn.

Image Credit (all 3 images): Photos by Seth Ely, Tillett Lighting Design © 2008

“Icepool”
Snow Show, Lapland, Finland 2004

The Snow Show, an art exhibition at the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Winter 2004, featured an ephemeral frozen pond marrying art, light and ice.

The Snow Show, an art exhibition at the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Winter 2004, featured an ephemeral frozen pond marrying art, light and ice.

Streaks of light serve as design and light source—revealing shadowy figures by artist Kiki Smith hovering below the surface.

Image Credit: Both images by Tillett Lighting Design © 2008

Ecliptic/Rosa Park Circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003

Sophisticated use of fiber optic technology helped to transform a once-dangerous park into a lively destination in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The heart of the 3½ acre site is a skating rink with 166 fiber optic lights glowing through the ice, mirroring the starlit winter sky. In warmer months, the rink becomes an amphitheatre hosting large public events.

Attracting 23,000 skaters during its first year, the renovated park is one piece in a comprehensive urban renewal plan.

Image Credit:    Ecliptic 1 – Photo by William Hebert
Ecliptic 2 & 3 – Photos by Suchitra Van, Tillett Lighting Design © 2008

Tillett Lighting Design Studio can be reached at:
Linnaea Tillett, PhD, IESNA
Tillett Lighting Design Inc.
172 North 11th Street, Studio 5
Brooklyn, New York 11211

Tel: 718-218-6578
Fax: 718-218-6584

www.tillettlighting.com
Email: info@tillettlighting.com