OASES worked with 25 Primary schools across County Durham to educate young people about the Litre of Light programme, it’s importance and it’s relevance to the Lumiere festival. The programme was developed in partnership with Artichoke, the arts organisation behind the Lumiere Festival.
Litre of Light is a global open source movement aiming to provide ecologically sustainable and cost-free lighting for simple dwellings with thin roofs. The movement started within the shanty towns of the Philippines. The device is simple: a transparent 1.5–2 L plastic bottle is filled with water plus a little bleach, to inhibit algal growth, and fitted into a hole in a roof. The device functions like a deck prism, the water refracting sunlight to deliver about as much light as a 40–60 watt incandescent bulb to the interior.
The workshop session were designed to teach Year 3 – 6 pupils about the importance of light to modern life and illustrate the difficulties that people all over the world face in accessing this most basic of needs. The pupils who took part in the project had a fabulous time watching educational videos and joining in various games and activities. They particularly liked getting into the large cardboard ‘shanty house’ to witness the difference a pop bottle light can make! During the session each pupil decorated their own 2 litre plastic pop bottle to be used in the Litre of Light, Lumiere festival installation which will be located within Durham Cathedral’s cloisters. The Litre of Light exhibit highlighted the global importance of light and the need for sustainable light sources.
Pictured is “The Rose”, 2015 installation by Mick Stephenson. A reconstruction of Durham Cathedral’s Rose Window, it’s made up of 2L pop bottles.
For further information about the Litre of Light Foundation, please visit https://literoflight.org/
