Unique art gallery opens at Edmonton City Centre mall

EDMONTON -

A new interactive art gallery is lighting up Edmonton City Centre mall with an immersive display that allows people to effect the art with their body movements.

The display is called “About Light” and features a large wall combined with projection technology that allows viewers to move particles and add colour to the various art pieces by moving around in front of it.

Kam Kaminski, the co-founder of About Light, talked about the importance of an exhibit like this coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The interactivity actually has no involvement around touching the walls, it’s all just base on your movement. So we can do scheduled entries with about 10 people in here at once where everybody can feel safe, enjoy art, feel inspired again, feel creative again and get back to their regular lives.”

The first featured artist at the gallery is Glen Ronald, with his exhibit “Voices of Chaos.” He spoke about his art, and how its effected by the digital display.

“As you move into the digital part, you’re surrounded by chaos of drawings and colours and everything, but you have a little bit of control over it in your body movements,” adding, “that’s how I feel about life in general. There’s a lot of chaos but we have some control.”

Ronald told CTV News Edmonton that the light display adds an engaging way to interact with his art.

“You feel like you’re in your own little universe back in that room there. Watching people do it is just absolutely amazing, like something I didn’t really think I would ever see is a more 3D rendition of the art.”

The display will feature different artists in the future with the display wall being updated to compliment the creator’s work.

The gallery is open every day during Edmonton City Centre mall operating hours and can be found on the ground floor of the east building, across from Winners.

Admission is by donation and the exhibit is expected to run until Nov. 15.

You can find About Light on Instagram @AboutLightYEG.