Lighting the Future
Daan Roosegaarde (b. 1979) works at the threshold of science, art and engineering â producing extraordinary large-scale interventions in public spaces. Many of his creations are designed to tackle our current ecological crises. For the
Smog Free Project, for example, Roosegaarde and his team installed giant smog-filtering towers in urban locations, converting the gathered carbon particles in diamonds. Their
Space Waste Lab, meanwhile, is working on innovative ways to track and capture space junk, including using light beams to trace it across the night sky. For Roosegaardeâs latest project,
Urban Sun, the artist has teamed up with designers, scientists and engineers to develop a public lighting system that bathes outdoor spaces in virus-destroying UVC rays. Itâs a novel and beautiful way of bolstering government defences against the spread of coronavirus.