A four-story star has landed in a run-down building in Butterworth, a city off mainland Penang, Malaysia. The massive LED construction, comprised of steel cables and over 500 meters of light, is artist Jun Hao Ong’s latest public installation. Constructed to raise awareness and illuminate the 2015 Urban Xchange art festival, the impressively large-scale sculpture pierces the building’s foundations, radiating outwards with a network of lights.
Appropriately titled The Star, this is just one of Ong’s many light sculptures. The Malaysian artist and architect enjoys experimenting with different light arrangements to couple “low-tech materials with hi-tech applications.” This piece is Ong’s submission to the festival, curated by the Hin Bus Depot, an art centre that aims to inspire the next generation of contemporary artists in Malaysia. The Xchange Festival itself is an event that works to bring together international and local artists and “encourage and challenge the artists and creative potential of the city’s urban environment.”
According to Ong, The Star is a “glitch in current political and cultural climate of the country, it is a manifestation of the sterile conditions of Butterworth, a once thriving industrial port and significant terminal between the mainland and island.” With its four-story tall radiance, the luminescent display certainly draws attention to the proceedings of the art festival in a big way.
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