COP26 "Grace of The Sun"
Who is Robert Montgomery
Montgomery was born in Scotland and lives in London. His place-based installations combine light and text, famously in a series of poems. Montgomery sees his project as “a beacon of hope,”. Although it is possible to power the world on solar energy, currently just 3 percent of the world is solar powered. He states “instead of looking under the ground for energy, we should have been looking up”, and hopes people will join him in telling “the story of solar’s powerful source for good.”
The artwork is a collaboration between Montgomery, the Little Sun Energy, Octopus Energy and the MTArt Agency. To date the Little Sun Energy, a clean energy start up founded by Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, has delivered solar power to more than three million people. Montgomery’s 11m wide by 5m high solar poem is lit by 1,000 Little Sun Solar lamps. Once dismantled at the end of COP26, the solar powered lights will go on to provide solar energy to the 600 million people living without electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
On Show at the Landing Hub, a fringe festival of COP26, the installation showcases how working together can produce something truly beautiful, selfless, and most importantly eco-friendly.
The solar power poem reads as follows:
“END THE OIL AGE
SALVAGE PARADISE
NOW WE MUST LIVE IN
THE GRACE OF THE SUN”
Renewable Energy and COP26
Securing Global Net Zero is a key goal of COP26, and in order to reach net zero we must encourage the investment of Green Energies such as Solar. With China aiming to become 25% clean powered by 2030, and India aiming to be 50% renewably powered by 2030 as of COP26, we are hoping to see a global acceleration towards clean energy. We would like to personally thank Robert Montgomery and the team behind “Grace the Sun” for making our wishes seen as well as heard.
