Esther Mathis

Research into the ideal light is very old. In photography, the light used to present a person’s features as ‘flawlessly’ as possible is called a ‘beauty dish’. Its main characteristic is the cancellation of shadows.
Like every photographic light, it has its analogue in a natural phenomenon: when the sky is cloudy, but the sun is barely veiled, the light will be nearly the same as the light of the beauty dish, only a thousand times stronger. Shadows will vanish, but on each angle or curve of a given object there will be a fine highlight that bestows it with a ‘slow’ glow.

Directly above the ceilings of museums, in an area inaccessible to the public, are a series of hidden rooms constructed to channel, expand and diffuse light in the most balanced way over the museum’s galleries.
Natural light is the only factor that is uncontrollable in the museum environment, and thus makes the light in each museum unique. These are formed of brilliant yet fragile surfaces. Their fragility makes them impenetrable by any human footstep.
Both hidden rooms and impenetrable spaces, themselves never seen and yet the light they make, makes sight possible.