The second iteration of the Solar Biennale, a roving biannual that focuses on design’s engagement with the sun, kicked off last month in Switzerland. Among the projects on view in its central exhibition, called Soleil-s, are two by members of the Daniels Faculty.

Have a Nice Day, a synthetic solar canopy that’s animated by motion sensors (pictured above), was designed by Common Accounts, the Toronto- and Madrid-based studio co-led by Assistant Professor Miles Gertler with Igor Bragado. 

“The installation considers the sun as a cosmic battery whose rays can increasingly be replicated and directed toward myriad purposes,” explains Gertler, citing cellular rehabilitation, anti-aging and enhanced fertility among them.

Adds Bragado: “The project troubles the psycho-social associations with the sun in the age of climate change and channels them into sensible, energetic encounters in the space of the gallery.” 

The museum staging Soleil-s, Lausanne’s Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliqués (mudac), has acquired Have a Nice Day (the assembly of which is pictured below) for its permanent collection. The piece was fabricated in Portugal by ArtWorks.

The creation of the installation was supported by research assistants Marie-Ellen Houde-Hostland, Emilie Tamtik and Elizaveta Grishina. Houde-Hostland is currently a student in the Faculty’s Master of Architecture (MARC) program, while Tamtik graduated from the program in 2024.

According to Gertler, “the piece is part of a larger body of research from my studio that focuses on self-design’s capacity to manage the body’s relation to the planetary.” In addition, it “furthers research presented in the film program of Shaping Atmospheres,” an exhibition staged last fall in the Faculty’s Architecture + Design Gallery. 

Shaping Atmospheres was curated by Ala Roushan and Associate Professor Charles Stankievech, who also have work on view at mudac.

A Shroud Woven of Solar Threads, their film invoking ancient Persian history for an alternative way of engaging with the sun (a still is pictured below), asks probing questions about mankind’s apparent desire to control the environment, reflecting “our hubris or, worse, our inab­il­ity to conceive of a harmo­ni­ous coex­ist­ence with other living beings.”

“In seek­ing to master the sun,” the artists posit, “are we jeop­ard­izing subtle ecolo­gical balances that we barely under­stand?”

Through the ancient figure of Mithra, they suggest, the Persians “viewed celes­tial phenom­ena as forces to engage in dialogue, rather than manip­u­late. Thus, the film poses an essen­tial ques­tion: In the face of current climate crises, could human­ity not recon­nect with former, more sens­it­ive ways of under­stand­ing?”

Soleil-s, the show in which both Have a Nice Day and A Shroud Woven of Solar Threads appear, was curated by Scott Longfellow and Rafael Santianez. It runs at mudac until September 21. 

The Solar Bien­nale, which was launched in the Netherlands in 2022, will also take place on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, “with events, parties and activ­it­ies to explore the many facets of the sun, a univer­sal symbol and source of life.”

Project installation image: ©Bruno Lança—ArtWorks