The phenomenon of light – in all its glory – is central to the work of Jordan Soderberg Mills. He has created numerous immersive works for temporary and permanent commissions around the world with a wonderful simplicity that belies the complex physics that make them possible. And his latest prismatic experimentation is now woven into the very architecture of a decommissioned 15th-century church in Brussels. Framed in black iron, the Boondael ChapelIts 14 windows now refract light to create rainbow effects that shift through the day and the seasons.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
The Canadian artist, who also works and lives in Europe, had earlier participated in a Ghent Design Museum exhibition inspired by Jan Van Eyck, who invented techniques that layer transparent panes in a specific way to create distinct visual effects. “There was a very specific altar piece that’s in Ghent, with an inscription that says the Virgin Mary is the reflection of eternal light,” says Soderberg Mills. “I thought, how can I represent eternal light? How can I create something that uses this idea of multiple layers and glazing that the Renaissance painter used? So I made Eternal Light + A spotless mirror.”
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
This piece gave Soderberg Mills visibility in Belgium, but the opening of the exhibition coincided with the lockdowns due to COVID-19. It made him all the more eager to see and feel his work. Then came the open call for the former church and current art space in Brussels. He had one very specific requirement: The glass had to be colorless and completely transparent. This, too, presented a challenge. “Because my practice is such an exploration of color, perception and light,” he says, explaining his thought process, “how can I cheat the system or be a little cheeky to produce glass that is colorless but transmits color?”
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
In Gothic churches, light was treated as a divine element. “A church window is a really mystical thing,” he says. While researching the adaptive reuse of old churches in Belgium, Soderberg Mills came across chapels along the North Sea coast where steeples became lighthouses. It prompted him to refer to Belgian architecture in an interesting way. he tried to create something “mythic or magical realist” while honoring the now secular use of the temple.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
Whatever he envisioned, he needed to work with Belgian manufacturers – another criterion of the open call. Soderberg Mills found one that supplies beakers to local workshops and a company that makes iron windows for train stations. Laboratory glass is particularly important—it takes the form of long borosilicate tubes, or rods, that are star-shaped in cross-section. Together, they form a striated surface. The reeds are etched internally with billions of tiny apertures that disperse the light into spectral bands.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
Another lab, this one in California, produced the film embedded inside the glass extrusions. “Film is used in spectroscopy,” explains Soderberg Mills, “anything that reflects light will have a color signature, and the composition of the rainbow will tell you what a star is made of.” Along with etched glass reeds, the film refracts daylight into “vibrant, shifting spectral color, turning the chapel into both a sanctuary and a living lens.”
Photo by Franziska Krieck.
By bending the light, iron-framed windows produce different perspectives at different times of the day and year. Soderberg Mills likens it to a sundial, which produces a completely unique experience depending on when you enter the church. “It’s about creating something that’s stable that also gives this sense of motion and movement, which is really the movement of the planet through space—this cosmological dance,” he says.
Chart contributed by Jordan Soderberg Mills.
