Starry Night

As expressive as Van Gogh’s starry night was, we unfortunately don’t get to see it like that much these days. Definitely not in a city like Amsterdam, where the night sky is permanently polluted by an orange glow. Architect Ivana Jelić and creative engineer Pavle Petrović, who work together to create art installations, present us with a radiant but artificial version of the starry sky as Van Gogh once saw it.

The hillside village and trees have been replaced by Amsterdam’s own canals, bridges and houses, and the brushstrokes by 1,400 ghost staffs, or acrylic tubes that are illuminated by small LED lights. With electric lights, they remind us – in a contradictory way – of the natural beauty that we miss today. Time to adjust the lighting in our cities?