ArandaLasch and Marcelo Coelho are pleased to share their first collaboration in the exhibition Silver, Then and Now at The Museum of the City of New York. The show presents historical silver artifacts from the museum’s collection alongside new ones made especially for the exhibition. Curator Jeannine Falino invited designers to choose specific silver objects and then consider their new possibilities today. Silver Light is a reinterpretation of the classic 1765 silver candle holder from their collection. As silver objects were once the symbol of a family’s wealth and prestige, the design of a new silver object begins by asking how silver’s value as a material has changed in the 21st century. Silver transformed from a valuable material, like gold, to something that conducts energy and becomes a conduit for media. Silver Light creates an illumination from LEDs on a sheet of plastic which is rolled into a transparent tube to stand up. The shadows from the light come from the silver circuit. In both the candle holder and the LED device, silver makes light.
Silver Light is a technological breakthrough in lightweight LED lighting using silver-printed circuits on flexible plastic. By using state-of-the-art conductive printing, a clear plastic sheet becomes a new kind of programmable light that is bendable and light as a sheet of paper.
