Power from the Sun Will Light Vancouver Night Sky

Next week we are in Vancouver for our photovoltaic project. It’s still a construction site but we are very excited about seeing the panels installed – and working - in the wind tower. Further information on the project is available at the web site. On the eve of our installation I am delighted to share with you these Reflections on the project written by Ursula Franklin.  

OF LIGHT, ENLIGHTENMENT AND INNOVATION

Reflections on Sarah Hall’s New Installation at Regent College, UBC  
 
Colour, light and art have brought joy and inspiration to people throughout the ages. There is something both real and unreal about light and colour. They are both tangible and distant, familiar and mysterious.  
 
Light and colour are constant companions of body and soul. They constitute a many-facetted door to the mind, and the artist’s use of these elements has often reflected their own society’s best understanding of the natural world.  
 
While in recent decades electrically generated light sources have stimulated artistic imagination, it is only now that the new scientific insight - that light can generate electricity - has been translated into a new and unique artistic offering.  
 
Sarah Hall’s new windows illuminate, but they also create light. Incorporating photovoltaic cells, her installation bestows a double gift: beauty and helpfulness. What more can we wish for? It is a privilege for me to salute Sarah and her colleagues on the occasion of the installation of “True North / Lux Nova”.  
 
URSULA M. FRANKLIN C.C. FRSC  
Ursula Franklin is a pioneering and influential physicist, writer and activist. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has lectured and written extensively about human rights and the effects of technology on society. She is author of The Real World of Technology and the recently published The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map.