AKE

Beautiful Destruction

Loi Krathong is a festival of lights held in Thailand annually. Huge groups of people gather and release these rice paper lanterns (releasing their worries and burdens into the sky). I saw floating lanterns for the first time in the Summer of 2010 at Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee. Hundreds of these lanterns are released into the sky and the visual effect is incredible. They float gracefully up into the sky very slowly and smoothly. It reminds me of fireworks, but this spectacle is so quiet and calm. It’s absolutely breathtaking. Like the coin trees, this event balances the personal with the communal— taking an individual’s personal concerns and joining them with the troubles of every member at the event. It is a translation from burdens to beauty, literally lifting that which weighs us down and releasing it as a weightless, decaying and eventually vanishing light. As the hundreds of lanterns float higher and higher, it looks as if they have transformed into stars, filling the sky with a temporary constellation. And finally, they disappear into the darkness, and the calm, collective release ends not with loud bangs or sparkles, but with each individual’s relinquishing of their worries to be replaced with a feeling of awe and power.