The Heart Pavillion

The Heart Pavilion is located at the LAB International Art Resort in the Fairy Mountain National Park in the Wulong district.

At the start of 2019, the BPI studio was commissioned by the LAB Art Museum to design a lighting system for a contemporary art installation by the world-famous artist Christian Boltanski.

The work is centred on the human heartbeat and consists of a collection that registers moments in human life through heartbeats.

Boltanski was born in Paris immediately after the city was liberated during the Second World War. His father, who was Jewish, had been forced to hide in the cellar of his home for several months. The shadow of the war accompanied Boltanski throughout his childhood and perhaps it is this that drove him to consider the fundamental issues of the value of life and existence through the prism of art.

Since 2008 he has recorded and collected the heartbeats of people from all around the world. So far, he has collected the heartbeats of 120,000 people.

The Pavilion is “hidden” in the silent forest, just as the heart is hidden in the human body, and it can only be reached by following a path through the wood.

The Lighting Designer has developed a lighting concept with a pulsating light that follows breathing rhythms and amplifies to the outside world the heartbeats that are conserved inside the pavilion in audio files that the visitors can listen to.

By following the path through the wood, visitors reach the top of the pavilion where they find circular “ripples” that create spaces reminiscent of the heart’s chambers and ventricles. The largest "ventricle" is full of shallow water. Visitors can enter each "ventricle" and feel the close connection between the building and the environment. A 360° DMX-controlled Trick luminaire located at the centre of each “ventricle”, shines its light in harmony with the rhythm of the heart.