Visitors enter the camera obscura during Back to School BBQ on Sept. 11, 2015.
Nestled among the trees in TRU’s Campus Commons this week is a curious hexagonal wood and fabric structure that invites exploration. The walk-in camera obscura is part of a multi-year research project by Visual Arts faculty member Donald Lawrence.
Returning to Kamloops after its stint at the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival this summer in Dawson City, Yukon, the Pavilion Camera Obscura opens today in the Commons. Latin for “dark room,” a camera obscura uses such simple means as a lens or open aperture to project an image inside of whatever lies outside. With earlier origins in Islamic, Greek and Chinese culture, such structures represented a meeting place of art and science in early modern Europe. In Victorian times walk-in cameras obscura became popular at seasides and other sites as a form of pre-cinematic spectacle and entertainment.
Step inside to see how a lens and mirror direct an ever-changing image of the surrounding landscape onto the surface of a shallow, dish-shaped table in its centre.
Related: Camera obscura festival a success
Lawrence and research assistant Levi Glass will be on hand periodically during the week and most of the day at Friday’s Back to School Barbecue and welcome questions. They will also be experimenting with a gearing mechanism to rotate the mirror or lens.
The camera obscura was constructed with the assistance of Dion Fortie, Ryland Fortie and Elizabeth Warner.
The structure of Lawrence’s portable Pavilion Camera Obscura in Dawson City, YK in June at the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival.
