Colorful Projection Mapped Garden Celebrates the Glory of Spring

Miguel Chevalier Jing An Kerry Centre

To celebrate the arrival of spring, artist Miguel Chevalier has created three new projection mapping installations at the Jing An Kerry Centre in Shanghai. Located next to Chairman Mao’s house, the building’s exterior plaza, tunnel, and glass bridges burst with colorful virtual flowers.

Digital Water Lillies, the mapping project that fills the center’s square, is a lush pasture of flowers and plants. Activated after sunset, the flower garden is filled with varieties rich with symbolism and good auspices during China’s spring season, such as African lilies, orchids, camellias, and peach tree flowers. As visitors walk the garden, it transforms under their feet, new pathways and plants appearing to symbolize the evolving nature of the season.

Filling the building’s tunnel, Chevalier built a 360-degree experience titled Trans-Natures. Stationary flowers act as virtual wall frescoes, playing off the interactive flower beds that line the floor. As a truly immersive experience, the public is plunged into this symphony of vibrant blossoms.

Perhaps inspired by his work in Gothic cathedrals, the artist’s final installation transforms the glass bridges of the Jing An Kerry Centre into virtual stained glass. As light pours through the translucent windows, colorful shadows cast along the pavement, filling the bridge with warmth. Here, nature pulls visitors into its warm embrace.

Together, the trio forms a stunning commentary on the changing of seasons. “[They] place visitors at the heart of a reinvented nature, an intriguing and poetic botanical universe, a place between dreams and reality.”