Isabella Chydenius: HIDE AND SEEK

An immersive light installation about femininity and urban nightclub culture.

The immersive installation “Hide and seek; to Everyone who ever escaped the day onto the dancefloor” presents an element of my research on safety/unsafety int he the night. This project specifically focuses on depicting the night as a romanticised space of otherworldliness and possibility, while statistically being the most dangerous time of the day, especially in terms of emotional and physical heteropatriarchal and patriarchal violence.

The installation is a representation of my observations on “safe space” femme and queer nightclubs, that I argue to provide time-space for re-imagination of ‘Self’ and a collective agenda, and therefor historically has and still may serve as a catalyst for change in society. 

The installation consists of a dimly lit room, filled with fog that the audience may walk around in until stepping onto areas that turn bright pink. The light activation speaks to finding the time-space of femme and queer nightclubs in the dangerous and dark night, a momentary feeling of joy, empowerment and excitement. Additionally, the pink light escapes the constructs of the square and shines light onto its surroundings, metaphorical to the aim of growing and expanding ‘safe spaces’. 

To whoever is familiar with the bright pink colour in these nightclubs, may be reminded by individual memories in other spaces with the same such light. Alternatively, it may be an intense experience of empowering pink, which allows each viewer to have a personal connection with it.
The weight-censored lights also serve as a reference to the disco culture, as the birth of disco music and clubs are often described as the hallmark of the American liberation for races, sexes and sexual orientations and as “a vibrant microcosm of social change” (Busha, N., 2015).