The magic of lights brings back to mind the rituals of the age-old tradition of artistic illumination, usually used in Southern Italy to adorn our cities during festive moments.

It is from here that Lumen Social Light takes its cue, a project about light that is divided into two parts: one dedicated to the production of art works and the other aimed at involving Enel and the citizens from Matera. With new models of public illumination and the virtuous use of light, Lumen Social Light traces artistic paths that lead the tradition into the future.

Lumen Social Light is a project that re-examines the aesthetical and functional assets of urban illumination with an integrated approach, which starts with the creative blueprint that is at the base of the design process. It seeks to project the tradition of artistic illumination into the future to bring light architecture to all the areas of the city of Matera.

With Lumen, light architecture will reach all the areas of the city of Matera, in particular the city landmarks which will host the Matera 2019 cultural programme. The urban illumination was designed by light designer Giovanna Bellini,using giant illuminated map pointers, the most contemporary form of localisation on digital maps. The map pointers will be partially made by Southern Italian lighting companies and partially by the citizens of Matera, through a series of workshops which will take place at the Open Design School, one of the pilot projects of Matera 2019. Workshops will be held every Friday and Saturday in October, at Casino Padula in the afternoon and at the Istituto Professionale Statale per l'Industria e l'Artigianato "Leonardo Da Vinci" and the Istituto Tecnico Statale Commerciale e Geometra "Loperfido - Olivetti" in the morning. The workshops are already all fully booked following the enrolment campaign launched during Materadio.

The projects will be presented to the public on Friday the 5th October at 7 p.m. at the Casino Padula in Matera, the location of the Open Design School.

LUMEN SOCIAL LIGHT WORKSHOPS

LUMEN: the Lumen workshop will consist in creating the MAP pointers. The workshop will thus be divided into two phases: the first will involve traditional woodworking processes used in preparing wood for artistic illumination, in other words sand papering, plastering and varnishing, whilst in the second phase light bulbs (of varying sizes and colours) will be applied to the wooden supports, with the help of artistic illumination technicians.

SOCIAL LIGHT: the workshop will consist in assembling and personalising Lighting Kits with large-scale participation of Matera’s citizens with the aim of reaching over 5000 kits.

Where:

The workshops will be held at the Open Design School in Matera and also in other locations in the city in order to greater involve the target community, totalling 10 locations, both public and private.

When:

Map pointer workshop - 4 two-day workshops starting in October: 5th/6thOctober, 12th/13thOctober, 19th/20thOctober, 26th/27thOctober 2018 (SOLD OUT)

Self-assembly KIT workshops - 10 four-hour workshops starting in November: 1st/2nd, 8th/9th, 15th/16th, 22nd/23rd, 29th/30th November 2018.

You can sign up for a Social Light workshop from the 8th October until the end of November by sending an email to the following address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or filling in the form

Switching on– 19th Dec 2018

Second switching on– 19th Jan 2019

Self-assembly KIT workshops (monthly) starting from the 22nd of January 2019.

The Lumen and Social Light projects are supported by Enel, one of the leading integrated global electrical energy suppliers, which has always been involved in the promotion of art and culture.