Trafalgar Sun by Greyworld [Public Art]

The sun had set 20 minutes earlier and the Number 24 bus lumbered up Whitehall towards a glowing orange ball of fire burning just behind Nelson’s Column. The new Sun was cour­tesy of Greyworld who seemed to think that a 2500kg bal­loon con­suming 210kW in order to emit 4-million lumens of sodium-discharge light, for one day only, would add a cheerful spark to (stat­ist­ic­ally) the most depressing day of the year.

I asked them, ‘Why on earth did you do it?’

“Creating the Trafalgar Sun was an exciting pro­ject for grey­world. Our work is all about public space, and it’s poten­tial for unex­pected joy. Add the wintry set­ting, and we just had to make ourselves a Sun.“
— Andrew Shoben at greyworld.org

And these videos show what happened:

The Sun was switched on at dawn and still looked pretty cheerful when I get there after work in the evening. The deck­chairs were get­ting filled up and there seemed to be an awful lot of people just hanging around talking to each other.
Goodness, I think these chaps may be onto something…

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Date: Monday 23^rd January 2012. Project: Trafalgar Sun. Artist: Grey­world, a group of artists that create public art. Client: Tropicana. Words & pic­tures: Ken Sparkes. All Rights Reserved

There is some talk of touring the install­a­tion — where do you think it should go?