Instead of colorful plumes cracking the sky with a crash, the public, several hundred people including many children, gathered on the terraces of the Grand Théâtre in this city in the south of France were able to marvel in a collected silence. of the "Ball of the Fireflies" staged by the Dutch studio Roosegaarde.

Energy sobriety obliges, the "final bouquet" of the winter solstice, inspired by the light of fireflies, took the form of thousands of biodegradable luminous sparks moving with the wind once night fell.

In this case, the device is therefore not pyrotechnic but technological, even if "inspired by nature", explained to AFP the artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde, founder of the studio of the same name.

"It's a huge cloud formation (...) of tens of thousands of floating objects, kinds of bubbles that reflect and absorb light in an intelligent way" and that the wind makes "always different", described the Amsterdam-based artist specializing in projects combining art and technology in urban environments.

After being deployed in Bilbao and London, and before going to Madrid and Auckland (New Zealand), "Spark" ("spark" in English, editor's note), the last poetic performance of Daan Roosegaarde, is presented for the first time in France as "A fifth season" ends, the Biennale of art and culture organized by the city of Aix-en-Provence, which welcomed 300,000 people in 2022.

The city of Aix-en-Provence hosted on December 21, 2022, at the end of its first Biennale of art and culture, a fireworks display of a new kind, resolutely ecological © Christophe SIMON / AFP

"A lot of fun things are banned" such as "traditional fireworks" which are no longer allowed in some countries, noted Daan Rossegaarde.

"So I wondered + how can we celebrate in a sustainable way and keep this festive tradition but modernized when traditional fireworks have increased air pollution tenfold, dogs are going crazy and that people damage their eyes?+", he said.

The idea with this installation is, in his eyes, to "party in a more poetic and more sustainable way".

© 2022 AFP