Riveting, Awestruck & Magical. I can go on but these were the only words which came to my mind when I saw ‘Sky Ladder' - The art of Cai Guo-Quiong on Netflix. It’s amazing what someone can do for creative expressions - in this case gunpowder. It was such a unique expression that when I saw some of the acts it was like a symphony of colours and at time lights.
Growing up in China and being the son of an artist, I guess he inherited a lot of his creativity in his genes & hence was a natural painter which is what he started with. But he wanted to do something different - he grew up in a city which is famous for fireworks and hence he started experimenting with gunpowder on his paintings. How ? Can be only seen and not explained.
From paintings he moved to objects or a location where he would first decide on a there and then meticulously plan the display on how the same will look and then use gunpowder, bamboo sticks, some time a hot air balloon (which he used for sky ladder) meticulously plan the entire structure on which the gunpowder with different colours and timers so that the display is as he visualised.
As his creative expression became popular and had a nature of spectacle to it. He started getting projects so he moved from China to Japan and finally to the US where the big money was. In one of the interviews given by an executive from his company we are told one of client gave them 2 million dollars and said do what you want. That’s the scale we are talking - The fireworks done during Beijing Olympics were his creation.
The Sky Ladder project was his dream project where he wanted a 500 m ladder to be created from ground to the sky like a pathway from earth to heaven. He wanted to do it for his grandmother who was 100. After 3 failed attempts he finally did it and showed it to his grandma on his iphone. She died after 1 month of seeing the sky ladder and the documentary is dedicated to her.
Day 33: 200 words/day challenge (361 words)
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