Faculty of Arts & Science

Visual and Critical Studies

Karina Roman Justo

PorTALES during Nuit Blanche Toronto

Outdoors immersive installation with colour lights and audio componentsStatementPlaying with light and sound incorporated to the city's architecture, this installation aims to attract the passer by through the senses, generating connections to each of the portals that unnexpectedly calls for them. Several studies and even artwork like Kapwani Kiwanga’s A wall is just a wall (2017) or Apolonija Šušteršič’s Light Therapy (1999 - ongoing) have addressed the subject of light and its behavioral or therapeutic effects on humans based on scientific research. These portals, in contrast, may not offer an intended or a conclusive effect, but they become enablers of a contemplation moment where the mind and the body reach for light and colour. An experience that leaves sensations, and perhaps even awakens memories; in other words, such exposure leaves a contingent and unpredictable effect on each viewer, becoming an imperceptible continuum by adding up to those little moments that encompass an individual’s lifetime. So, can we become a continuum of light? Can we light up other bodies subtly? Abruptly? Are we somehow portals ourselves?