SKIN OF LIGHT  © 2010

Skin of Light, 2010
Wax, methacrylate, lead, aluminium, LEDs
1450 x 850 x 120 cm.
Itsasmuseum, Bilbao

Like an enormous blanket, the urban fabric of the city of Bilbao stretches across the exhibition space, recreating the rich topography of the city, as if it housed a latent body within it. The voids caused by the urban fabric weave the varied morphology of the city, generating different textures that are articulated by the central void of the estuary.

The proposal needs to generate a context to explain the city of Bilbao and to serve as a three-dimensional support to tell, through light, the three revolutions that the city has undergone: the industrial revolution, the urban revolution and the knowledge revolution. A complex network of LEDs runs through all the lead platforms, depositing a point of light inside each wax volume, as if a neural network were connecting the whole city, turning it into an even more living organism. The whole network of tubes of different diameters produces an orderly and mysterious lower landscape that reminds us of a forest where the trunks are organised in an incompressible, but beautiful, internal order.

General view at Shanghai World Expo 2010. Bilbao Guggenheim Pavilion ++. "A better city a better life", Shanghai, China. 30/04/2010 a 31/10/2010.

CREDITS ::

Conceptualisation: Esther Pizarro and Design L.A.A.B. Fundación Metrópoli
Project management: Artemio Fochs and Carlos Lahoz (Design L.A.A.B. Design L.A.A.B)
Architecture and coordination: Inés Primo de Rivera (Design L.A.A.B.)
Sculptural production: Esther Pizarro Studio
Technology: PHILIPS Ibérica // Markus Schroll
Technological update (2022): Markus Schroll
Developer: Promovisa / Bilbao City Council
Current location: Itsasmuseum, Bilbao

Central installation of the Bilbao Guggenheim ++ Pavilion. "A better city a better life" exhibited at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

Since 2011, it has been on permanent display at the Itsasmuseum, Bilbao.

EXHIBITED IN ::

Shanghai World Expo 2010. Pabellón Bilbao Guggenheim ++. “A better city a better life”, Instalación escultórica “Piel de luz”, Shanghai, China. 30/04/2010 a 31/10/2010. Catalogación: DL: BI_947-2010. Edición de catálogo: “Bilbao Bilbao Guggenheim ++. Shanghai World Expo 2010”, (2010). Edita: Ayuntamiento de Bilbao. Extensión: 182 páginas. Textos: Iñaki Azkuna. Idioma: castellano, vasco, inglés y chino. Patrocina: Promovisa, Ayuntamiento de Bilbao

AlhóndigaBilbao. “Trans/formaciones. La ciudad: Espacios y tiempos. Bilbao Guggenheim ++. Shanghai World Expo 2010”, Instalación escultórica “Piel de luz”, Bilbao, 22/02/2011 al 01/05/2011

Itsasmuseum. “Piel de luz”. Instalación permanente desde 2011-Actualidad, Bilbao