Pilgrimage in Atelier Des Lumières

When I was in Paris earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit ‘Atelier Des Lumières’, the workshop of light. It was a warehouse with a digital art show, using light and projection on the reflection of mirrors, walls and water to create images. Displaying the works of Van Gogh; Starry Night as well as other displays titled Dreamed Japan, and Verse.  I am not normally one to be overwhelmed by art, I see it and appreciate the need for it but it doesn’t often speak to me.  However when I sat and watched this display for an hour in Paris I was moved to tears.

The paintings of Van Gogh, flowers, irises, sunflowers, wheat fields, portraits of people, and starry night moved slowly across the walls bouncing off different features of the warehouse and I sat and cried. I had become immersed into the paintings, the colours speaking to my soul. The Japanese art began and I still found myself lost in the pictures. Cherry blossoms grew up the wall and then were blown with the wind; I too felt the wind blow. It swept me off my feet. Then the paper lanterns blew across the room, covering the walls with hundreds of lanterns. I felt these images as a prayer; each one of them for people and situations in our world which mattered.

As a travelling group, we had been told that all aspects of our trip were a pilgrimage and not just the time we were in Taizé, but it wasn’t until I was sat in this dark warehouse in tears that I understood what that meant.  In listening to where God is in each moment and reflecting on what we experience, we continue our pilgrimage together, a pilgrimage of reconciliation, to ourselves, to God and to the world around us. 

This art installation is set to come to Melbourne in the next year and I could not be more excited. My pilgrimage to Taizé has taught me to look for God in every moment and to experience all of life’s emotions through the heart of God.