Light Between the Islands background by Grimanesa Amoros
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UROS ISLAND

Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amorós UROS ISLAND, 13 x 11-foot LED sculpture and light sculpture made of stainless steel, diffusion and reflective material, and LEDs, its domed forms blending the shifting light of Venice's canals with the luminosity of Lake Titicaca and the totora reed islands of the pre-Incan Uros people. Exhibited as part of the Future Pass collateral exhibition at the 54th International Venice Biennale, Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice, Italy, 2011.
Grimanesa Amoros video thumbnail for UROS ISLAND

Location: 54th Venice Biennale | Venice, Italy, 2011
13 ft 7 in x 11 ft 2 in x 26 in
Stainless steel, diffusion material and reflective material, LEDs, custom lighting sequence, and electrical hardware.

UROS ISLAND is a light sculpture presented at the 54th International Venice Biennale as part of the collateral exhibition Future Pass, its LED domes blending the shifting light of Venice’s canals with the sacred luminosity of Lake Titicaca to create a work in which two bodies of water, separated by continents, converge in a single luminous form.

  • Selected as a collateral event of the 54th International Venice Biennale under the theme ILLUMInazioni, UROS ISLAND placed Amorós among an international gathering of artists at one of the art world’s most significant and storied venues, situating her practice within the global conversation on light, culture, and technological art.
  • BBC (2011) covered the Future Pass exhibition at the Venice Biennale, bringing international broadcast attention to UROS ISLAND and affirming Amorós’s place as one of the most significant Latin American artists working in public light sculpture at that moment.
  • Amorós developed the work’s custom lighting sequence by analyzing the precise quality of light from sunrise to sunset in both Venice and Lake Titicaca, blending the two bodies of water into a single unified sequence that shifts as the sun arcs across the sky.
  • The Future Pass exhibition was curated by Victoria Lu, Felix Schoeber, and Renzo di Renzo, presented at the Fondazione Claudio Buziol in Venice before traveling to the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, and the Today Art Museum in Beijing.
  • Following the Biennale, UROS ISLAND traveled to four international institutions across Europe and Asia, making it one of the most widely seen works of Amorós’s career and a defining moment in the global reach of her practice.

    • When Amorós was a child living on the coast of Peru, she always loved the beauty of the ocean; everything from the tides to the colors, to the bubbles and the foam.

    Uros Island is inspired by the islands in Lake Titicaca, located southeast of Peru. They are floating islets made entirely out of totora reeds. The pre-Incan Uros, who live on these forty-two self-fashioned floating islands, build everything out of this material – from houses to boats to watch towers.

    From these two ideas, she created Uros Island to reflect the natural elegance of sea foam and totora reeds. The sculpture will seemingly arise from the ground as if it were one with the earth.

    Future Pass is a collateral project of the 54th International Venice Biennale curated by Victoria Lu, Felix Schoeber, and Renzo di Renzo. It takes place at the Fondazione Claudio Buziol, a non-profit, private institution based in two venues at the center of Venice. After the Venice Biennale this exhibition will also tour to Rotterdam’s Wereldmuseum, the National Taiwan Art Museum in Taichung and the Beijing Art Museum in China.

    An article by BBC can be read here.