Timeless Uluru and the Field of Light, Yulara NT Australia

When I was a child, one of my favourite Christmas activities was to get into the car at night, wrapped up in blankets against the cold, and drive out to the more affluent suburbs and gaze in wonder at the elaborate displays of festive lights. These lights were especially magical against the winter snows.

It was customary – almost obligatory – that every house be decorated from mid-November through early January, and it was only the lazy householder who didn’t take the lights down and store them carefully between seasons! Those were the days before LED lighting: every string could be rendered dark by a single blown bulb, and every bulb was expensive. At our house, a single strand followed the roof gutters of our bungalow, but in the “rich end” of town, neighbours competed for the best displays – the most spectacular of which made it into the local newspapers. Some of the lights even blinked on and off in unison! Santa Clauses and lawn snowmen were not uncommon, and I even recall the occasional manger scenes, complete with live donkeys.

These days, with LED faerie lights and solar power, garden lighting is not necessarily reserved for Christmas – but it was those nights with my nose pressed to a cold, foggy car window that I though of as I watched more than 50,000 coloured lights slowly come to life in a large field near Uluru, the geographical middle and spiritual heart of Australia.

Even without the lights, that distinctive 500 million year-old monolith, rising up out of the flat plains in the Northern Territory’s Red Centre, was enough to make the hairs on my neck stand up. It was exactly that incredible feeling of energy surrounding this sacred rock that inspired the English/Australian artist Bruce Munro with the idea for the ambitious Field of Light immersive installation. First opened to the public on April 1, 2016, the network of frosted glass bulbs and the optical fibres radiating from them, covers an area “the size of nine football fields” – or four, depending on whom you read, or your code of football I guess.

Although the installation was meant to be temporary, after critical acclaim and popular response, it has been extended more than once: it is currently slated to close on 31 December 2021 – but who knows? 

Until next time:

Pictures: 23October2020