Jim Rokos Design - Revealing the Invisible

Revealing the Invisible celebrates the forgotten lead mining industry of Allendale. Blue light art installations reveal the ruins true to their form. The result of a Sustainable Tourism Design Camp as part of Dott 07 (Design of the Times).

BACKGROUND
Given a chance to explore the natural, social and built environment, what struck the designers deeply, were the invisible elements of the town’s lead mining past. Much of the physical evidence of Allendale’s industry appears to have faded away as it has decayed and slowly been consumed by it’s natural surroundings.

With the desire to illuminate these moments of Allendale’s industrial heritage, the team has proposed a series of four light-based installations to fill in the gaps, which time and space has erased. Light provides the proof our eyes often require to make sense of a physical world that no longer exists. Yet it also taps into the ephemera and fleeting nature of an intangible reality that remains intact.

INSTALLATION
These four installations sustained by hydroelectric power from the Allen River, will run continuously yet be most pronounced during the evening hours. We are proposing a self-guided experience whereby visitors move at their own pace and draw their own conclusions. In the hopes of supporting an open-ended experience, navigation and explicit background information will be kept to a minimum. Transportation to and from Allendale as well between installations will be provided. Ultimately, by interacting on one’s own terms, we believe connections between past and present have the greatest chance of being felt and known.

Part of the 2007 DOTT festival.
A collaboration between Christina Worsing, Jim Rokos, Monica Chong and Vincenzo Di Maria.