Geert Belpaemepersonen Jan Maertenspersonen Ezra Veldhuispersonen Emese Csornaipersonen Henri Emmanuel Doublierpersonen Jan Fedingerpersonen Reflecting Lightresearch

Reflecting on Reflecting Light/Night

In 2021, a group of six theater makers/lighting designers—Geert Belpaeme, Jan Maertens, Emese Csiornai, Ezra Veldhuis, Henri-Emmanuel Doublier, and Jan Fedinger—will gather at KASK & Conservatorium. What connects them is a shared intuition: that (their) lighting design extends beyond the boundaries of the existing vocabulary. Conventional lighting (design) remains confined to the visual realm, is mainly expressed in passive spotlights, and can above all be regarded as a cosmetic intervention — illuminating a subject or story without actually being an integral part of it. For the six creators, these common definitions are therefore inadequate: light does more than just make things visible. It is more than a purely physical non-thing at the service of other things.

Rather, the group argues, lighting design is an autonomous (theatrical) discipline that generates its own narrative and meaning. But what remains unnamed remains unilluminated — so they set themselves one common goal: to search for a language that expresses what light means to them; a language that gives words to what light can be and do.

For five years, the Reflecting Light research group searched for an alphabet for their work and working materials. Navigating between theory and practice, they approached light from different angles. They collected their findings in nine Fanzines, each of which focuses on a specific theme or approach to the theme. For example, one zine talks about light from the perspective of darkness, while another approaches it as an ecological problem/potential. Yet another turns light into a dancing body. A true and layered discourse on light gradually takes shape.

In December 2025, the research project came to an end in two ways: with a final workshop, which mainly reflected on the acquired discourse through group discussions and thus provided the material for the ninth and final Fanzine, and also a closing celebration slash light show with a packed program of multiple installations — christened Reflecting Night — at BUDA in Kortrijk.

I distill two key moments from both evenings, because in both — albeit in different ways — I see the effectiveness of the discourse that has been established reflected. With the findings — the ‘language’ — of the zines in mind, both performances can be read as textbook examples of the changed view of light (design). By translating what I have seen into language, I see how the saying confirms itself. What emerges is a quod erat demonstrandum for the effectiveness of the discourse that has been established.

1.

After the workshop, as night fell, an installation was set in motion in a dark corridor of KASK & Conservatorium. The installation—conceived by Henri-Emmanuel Doublier—involved a bicycle, but not just any bicycle. Once connected to a projector and set in motion by a cycling body, the bicycle illuminated a dark corridor with words and sentences.

While cycling, sentences from the preceding workshop passed by: reflections on light in a progressive or conservative world, in which there is either scarcity or abundance of goods.

In fact, what the installation attempts to convey is simple: the bicycle, like the researchers throughout Reflecting Light, turns conventional wisdom on its head. Instead of conceiving of light as a means — i.e., that which merely illuminates subjects — light here becomes an end. The performer's body is no longer that which is illuminated, but an instrument of illumination itself. Through this reversal, light itself becomes active, a subject in its own right, and as a subject it is capable of carrying information and telling stories. This movement is completed by the projected texts that depict different worlds. The entire installation is thus a metaphor for the way in which light, as a carrier of information, reflects possible images of our future. It is lighting design as an autonomous discipline, a storytelling imagination machine.

photos: Ezra Veldhuis

2.

At BUDA, Leticia Skrycky presented the performance Las Lámparas. Skrycky takes lighting design out of the realm of the purely visual. As a result, Las Lámparas is entirely an ode to the synesthetic qualities of light: it is felt warmth, smelled scent, heard sound... This multi-perceptuality also perpetuates light as a body that exists in its own right.

Skrycky calls her performance an ‘electric choreography’ — an immersive performance that evokes a primitive perceptual state. She succeeds in this: I catch myself thinking that this is how it must have been when Prometheus stole fire from the gods. All this is reminiscent of the concept of hauntology, which is also raised by the research group as a way of describing the specific presence of light. Light is like a spirited, ghostly presence, omnipresent but incomprehensible, just as the past lives on in every present — ‘the past haunting the present’. Because our perception resonates during Las Lamparas, our senses overlap, we penetrate to a core experience, and the light is able to evoke something primal.

Las Lámparas thus also serves as conclusive proof for the premises of the research.

The two performances are by no means exhaustive for the trajectory of Reflecting Light and the insights gained therein. However, they were key moments that enabled the six artists to complete their research. But it is clear that so much more is possible. The discourse on light that they have established manifests itself throughout this double ending above all as an open playing field, in which the creators, with their practice, can continue to circle far into the future.

photos: Giada Cicchetti

Geert Belpaeme, Jan Maertens, Emese Csiornai, Ezra Veldhuis, Henri-Emmanuel Doublier, and Jan Fedinger are artistic researchers affiliated with KASK & Conservatorium, the school of arts of HOGENT and Howest. The research project Reflecting Light was funded by the HOGENT Arts Research Fund.

Bram Coeman (Buda Arts Centre) and Tomi Humalisto (Uniarts Helsinki) were also involved in the project.

text: Tilde De Vylder