Imagine that all the water in the world found its way into a gallon-sized container. Just a teaspoon of that would be drinkable.
And what might happen if we Americans had to carry around the 2.8 gallons of oil each of us consumes each day? We might see children carrying two 1.4 gallon jugs of the stuff to school.
These and numerous other images peppered a side of the Pepper Building downtown facing One Park Vista last night, bringing the Winston-Salem Light Project's latest show to a close after a three-night run that began Thursday.
"We were curious about what was going on," said Walter McCloud, who took in the show with his three sons after dinner. "It's something to learn. It's something for kids to learn too."
The images, created by lighting students at UNC School of the Arts, came from projectors in an unused apartment on the third floor of One Park Vista. Their goal was to illuminate the meaning of statistics, such as the world's population reaching 7 billion by next year. The images explored several environmental issues, including pollution, consumption of oil and the effect of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life.
Darrell Ring of Yadkinville was part of a photography class wandering the city last night when the group stumbled upon the light display.
"I was kind of surprised when we walked up and saw stuff on the building there," he said, standing by his classmates from the Sawtooth School of Visual Art. "I wasn't expecting it…. It is pretty."
Cars sometimes came to a halt on Fourth Street and many pedestrians also interrupted their strolls to look up at the images. Or people took in the show on lawn chairs on a green between the Pepper Building and One Park Vista.
Or they peered out of windows as they dined in Downtown Thai.
One of those diners was Milton Rhodes, the president and chief executive of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, which provided half of the project's $20,000 budget.
Rhodes said he was "impressed" with what he saw.
"We've had good crowds," said Norman Coates, the project's leader, who teaches lighting design at UNCSA. He estimated that more than 400 people took in the display during its first two showings.
Coates said he wants to make Light Project shows annual events. The inaugural presentation took place last year when lighting students bathed the Millennium Center not with images but with colors. Coates said he is considering doing two shows at two different locations next year, with one show focusing on the arts and the other on innovation.
"The students have learned to engage the public and actually talk about the work," Coates said as his students handed out explanatory literature about the show and answered questions. "It's really difficult to get our students to do that. They can create the work, but they have trouble expressing where their ideas came from…. For the rest of their lives they're going to have to sell their work and explain it."
kkeuffel@wsjournal.com
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