Illuminating Geometry involves folding paper circles, glueing them together to make 3D shapes, and then placing a light inside. The shapes you can make in this way are a tetrahedron, a cube, an octahedron, a dodecahedron and an icosahedron. They have 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20 sides respectively. These shapes are called the Platonic Solids and they are the only shapes you can make by repeating the same 2D shape over and over again.

Each time Illuminating Geometry is part of a project, I give it a new twist so that it fits perfectly with the event. When I took it to the Abu Dhabi Science Festival, I was inspired by the chandeliers in the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, to give participants coloured tissue so that their lanterns could be multicoloured. When I worked with Bury Archives we used old maps to link the participants to Bury through the ages. In Aberdeen, I was inspired by the carved Pictish stones in the area and used their symbols in 320 lanterns made by the school children of the area.

Illuminating Geometry has been part of these events:

November 2014 Abu Dhabi Science Festival

April 2015 Scottish Parliament for the International Year of Light

September 2015 Orkney International Science Festival

September 2016 Orkney International Science Festival

November 2016 Abu Dhabi Science Festival

February 2017 Spectra Aberdeen’s Festival of Light  (Here is a little video )

April 2017 Mother of the Nation Festival, Abu Dhabi

October 2017 Enlighten Festival of Light and Sound, Bury

March 2018 Mother of the Nation Festival, Abu Dhabi

For more information about any of these projects or how Illuminating Geometry could be part of your event please contact me.