yellowpinkblue 

Before the mist clears from my mind, let me share a few quick thoughts about the beautiful and brilliantly simple installation by Ann Veronica Janssens that I visited. 

Three coloured lights of yellow, pink and blue and mist; such a simple premise but one that was enticing for me and enough people for a 35 minute wait at the Wellcome Collection, on the Euston Road.

It passed in a haze (#sorrynotsorry for the mist puns) though – there are iPads with more on the States of Mind: Tracing the edges of consciousness exhibition that the installation is part of, and mercifully there’s seating that you shuffle along, sparing your aching backs.

Once we stepped inside it was like another world, one filled with pink that turns into yellow that turns into blue. As someone who adorrrres colour it was my idea of heaven! 

 

  

A few tips:

• Do expect to be completely disoriented by the experience. Imagine being really short-sighted and not wearing your specs, that’s how I can best describe it!
• You can hear other people around you but might not see them until you nearly bump into them – therefore walk slowly. Take your time to experience the colours. 
• Make sure you have memory space on your phone/camera to take lots of pictures and videos. Play with the light and the shadows created by people moving. 
• If you want to take a pause and just sit there absorbing it all and thinking about your own consciousness then do – but don’t sit in the middle of the floor like one particular twerp, unless of course you want squished fingers and someone’s crotch in your face. Move to one of the walls instead. 
• Walk around more than once and approach the light from opposite ends. The in-between spaces are just as beautiful as the full colour spaces; the green is calming and walking towards the orange is like being in a sunset. Just gorgeous! I made hubby walk around three times with me just to experience it again.

   
 

 

I left feeling elated and planned that if I won the lottery I would buy a house with an extra room just to have a coloured mist like this to go in and recharge myself whenever the world got too much. I could go on and on about this installation but I don’t want to spoil it! 

My only teeny, weeny criticism which isn’t a criticism but just something I would have added to the experience – music or silence. I think silence would have made it brilliantly eerie, music (something like Sigur Ros or a chant or something ethereal) would have made it even more uplifting. 

Really, you have to experience the intensity of the immersion into colour for yourself – that’s the whole point of it after all!!

yellowpinkblue is on at the Wellcome Collection until January 3rd 2016 with further events to follow. Go see it now!