Current Perspectives: Thérèse Lahaie

Join us at the Kansas City Art Institute for a lecture by artist Thérèse Lahaie. Lahaie's current series enlivens public and private interior and exterior spaces with bird-like imagery. Light installation artist and open-water swimmer Therese Lahaie keeps track of the tides and seabirds as she swims in the San Francisco Bay.

Her current series of Lightbird images is made of light reflected from mirrors. Lightbirds fly with sunlight during the day and, after sunset, video projections for a nighttime migration. Their forms are bird-like and fish-like, with wings and fins of light. Lahaie studied Fine Art and Biology at Emmanuel College, Boston, glass technology at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and art history at Richmond College, London, England.

This event is free and open to the public.

Lahaie’s light sculptures and installations are in public and private collections, including the SalesForce Tower Art, performances in San Francisco, CA, and works in the permanent collections of the Corning Contemporary Museum of Glass (NY), the Glassmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark), Crocker Art Museum, (CA), and the Di Rosa Collection, (CA), the Cafesjian Art Trust, (MN), Worcester Art Museum, (MA), and a $250K public art installation, Crossing Signal Mosaic,(CA).

Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Leonardo Magazine, and Architectural Record. Lahaie lives and works in the Emeryville Artist Cooperative in Emeryville, CA.

Lahaie’s light sculpture projects include the SalesForce Tower Art, Lightbird projection in San Francisco, CA, and work in the permanent collections of the Corning Contemporary Museum of Glass (NY), Glassmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark), Crocker Art Museum (CA), and the Di Rosa Collection (CA), Cafesjian Art Trust, Shoreview, MN, Fuller Craft Museum Acquisition, Brockton, along with a public art installation, Crossing Signal Mosaic ($250.000) (CA).

Header Image: Salesforce Tower Commission, 2023/24, still from video, 30-second loop. (#204) spring migration

Photography/ Videography: Hanh Nguyen, Joel Kurtz, Ebbe Roe Yovino Smith, Mike Haggerty, Joe Carlig, Bruce Hanson, Jose Heredia

Lightbirds with 80 wing spans migrated 1000’ high to soar the six-story, four-sided screen. Their flight celebrated the spring migration route through San Francisco, and acknowledged the loss of over 4 million diving seabirds, or Common Murres, due to the impact of warming oceans on their food source on the US Northwest coast.