Christmas Canal Parade – Amsterdam
design & production of 5 light art boats
When visiting the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Historic museum or the Hermitage, one can’t stop looking at all these magnificent portraits painted by the old masters, but before they became famous works of art they were all real people, no kings or queens but normal citizens of Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands. I freed 20 of them from their original paintings and placed them behind the windows of a canal cruise boat, so for once it’s them who are looking at us instead of the other way around.
Design for “de Hollandse Keurtuin”, a light art boat inspired bij the Dutch Baroque Gardens of the 17th century.
For the VOC porcelain boat I created a small forest of stylized Christmas trees made of huge inflatable Delft-blue illuminated cones, and of course they had to be deflated for all the 25 bridges at the parade which provided quite a spectacle.