BOREALIS

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ON DEMAND

This mesmerising installation brings the experience of the Northern Lights to cities the world over. Time slows down as eyes look up. An aurora, here and now, in our latitudes?

Throughout the ages, we have attributed countless legends to the celestial phenomenon. Today we can replicate it. Dan Acher’s BOREALIS is about our ancestral communion with nature and our more recent compulsion to dominate and control it. It’s about inspiring shared emotions in the center of a city by creating something magical – something that shouldn’t naturally be there. … more

Tour dates

Upcoming

2023
Centennial Vineyards, NSW, Australia, May 25 – June 30
(Check this space for updates)

Previously presented in

SerendiCity, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, Feb – March 2023
Nightfall Light Festival, Middlesbrough, UK, Dec 2022
Biennale des Imaginaires numériques, Aix-en-Provence, France, Nov 2022
Bram Stoker Festival, Dublin, Ireland, Oct 2022
MIT, Cambridge Science Festival, MA, USA, Oct 2022
Lieux Publics, Marseille, France, Sept 2022
Daylesford, Australia, July – Sept 2022
Coup de chauffe, Cognac, France, Sept 2022
Paris l’été, France, July 2022
Nuits de Fourvière, Villeurbanne / Lyon, France, July 2022
Millénaire de Caen, France, May 2022
Suwon, Korea, March – April 2022
Gluttony, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia, Feb – March 2022
The Awakening, Hull, UK, March 2022
Lux Helsinki, Finland, January 2022
Geneva, Switzerland, Dec 2021 – January 2022
Winter Lights, Let’s do London, UK, December 2021
Abu Dhabi, UAE, December 2021
Bradford is LIT, Bradford, UK, November 2021
Mars, Mons, Belgium, October 2021
Zomer van Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium, August 2021
Greenwich & Docklands Int. Festival, London, UK, August 2021
Tombées de la nuit, Rennes, France, July 2021
Gluttony, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia, Feb – March 2021
Silbersalz Science & Media Festival, Halle, Germany, Octobre 2020
Bega! Festival, Timisoara, Romania, Octobre 2020
Paris l’Été, Paris, France, July 2020
GLOW Festival, Surfers Paradise, Australia, August 2019
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR), Geneva, Switzerland, July 2019
Perth Winter Fest, Australia, June 2019
Sydney, Australia, May 2019
Tower Of London, UK, April 2019
Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia, February 2018
Tokyo, Japan, November 2017
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, November 2016

BOREALIS MUSIC

Listen to the music accompanying The BOREALIS installation, composed by French musician Guillaume Desbois. @SoundsLikeNow

Portrait of Dan Archer, the artist behind the Borealis Northern lights show installation

Dan Acher

Artivist, Founder, Happy City Lab
Artivist Dan Acher is the founder of Happy City Lab and an Ashoka Fellow based in Geneva, Switzerland. Central to his work is art as generator of change across local and global communities.

Dan uses cities as playgrounds in which citizens of all backgrounds can connect and engage with the key issues of our time, both individually and collectively.

His large-scale installations are designed to evoke awe and communal introspection; their size and humanity remind us that we are all in this together.

Dan has travelled widely exploring various cultures and has featured in The Guardian, Slate, Vice/Creators Project, Mashable, UN Today, Financial Times and Creative Review amongst others.

More on his vision in this TEDx talk.