The Light House

site specific projects/anne katrine senstad/go to main site specific projects go to main menu

KK Projects, N Villerie St, St Roch, New Orleans

The Light House - An installation by Anne Katrine Senstad
Curated by Koan Jeff Baysa, Dec 9 2007 – March 2008. The installation was part of a group of derelict cottage installations run by the non for profit foundation KK Projects, and included installations by artists Tony Oursler, Mel Chin and Dawn Dedeaux.

Senstad's installation was supported by Office for Contemporary Art Norway

About The Light House installation, 2007/08

The interior light landscape consists of numerous industrial office lights placed within the structure of a Hurricane Katrina damaged derelict cottage in the St Roch neighborhood of New Orleans. Entering into an orderly room, the office lights are arranged in sequence. They display no emotion, just their own existence as sculptural form, as ceiling lights representing the world of the former inhabitants turned upside down. As the viewer passes the spatial state of seemingly calm order, we enter the display of poetic entropic disorder, and their random placement in the space. The formality and starkness of the office lights revealing remains of personal belongings, still intact in the spot they were left, displaying emotional intensity in their existence as evidence. The notion of time ceasing to exist is enlightened in the abandoned house as the manifestation of the effects of hurricane Katrina is revealed. Lifeless stuffed toys, decaying wall structures, muddy utensils and disorder are all evidence of entropy under light. As the environmental light changes from light to dark, day to night, the interior lights create a “living” memorial house. The overexposed interior, when viewed from the outside, brings light back into the abandoned home, it becomes a living shrine. As we step into the house, we experience a space of pure light, an industrial form of a sublime sacred space.

The Light House installation Room I, (The ceiling was found on the floor)

The Light House installation Room II, (The Poetry of Entropy: Distant Voices, Still Lives)

The Light House opening with Mardi Gras Indians on N Villerie Street,St Roch, Lower 7th Ward (KK Projects joint openings on the occasion of Prospect 1 - New Orleans Biennial)