Bring Helios into your own life

The sun marks dawns. It’s kinda fundamental for them. And Helios, a glowing globe of calm awesomeness, marks a new era for the National Trust.

Beautifully unexpected within the urban setting and organically at odds with the wrought-iron railings, Helios, a 7m glow from Luke Jerram, has a visual and emotional gravity at the Devonport Market Hall.

Commissioned by the National Trust, and in Devon celebrating Saltram’s Heritage Lottery-funded accessibility drive, Helios has been orbiting the UK. It’s been a small, and rather special trajectory, calling into select venues. But it, too, marks an outreach from the National Trust, moving from static venues, to celebrating the shared culture they represent into communities. Letting them know the National Trust is there, and that the treasures and expertise it nurtures, belong to everyone.

“The Trust is in the process of launching a new 10-year strategy, and it’s going to work quite differently than it has done before, because it needs to galvanise people around restoring nature, getting more people to enjoy the benefits of nature, beauty and history, and inspiring people to care for all of that, whether it’s in their places, towns and cities, or whether it’s on National Trust sites,” Tom Freshwater head of visitor programming at the National Trust tells ArtsCulture.

The curtain raiser to that new, grand ambition is Helios (name from the Ancient Greek personification of the Sun). ‘At an approximate scale of 1:200 million, each centimetre of the sculpture represents 2000km of the Sun’s surface – complete with extraordinary detail, including sunspots, spicules and filaments.’

It’s at Devonport to draw attention to the work that’s going on at Saltram – the place it holds in the heart of Plymouth, and the nature and cultural experiences that are to come.

“One of the key things for the plan to the National Trust is working well with nature. And there’s nothing more natural than the sun. So to be able to do a project that brings that indoors in a way that is unexpected, it brings a place to life you wouldn’t expect to come into the market hall here and see this, and it’s a way to give people a chance to reflect,” says Tom.

Helios itself is accompanied by a soundtrack, and the hum of space and science noises that add to the majestic, weighty calm.

“There’s a beautiful soundtrack that uses some of the NASA supplied sounds of the sun and other things connected with life on Earth,” explains Tom. That includes a dawn chorus and sounds interpreting the Northern Lights. It all adds to the reflective space vibe.

“Everybody has their own reaction, and I’ve been lucky enough to see it at all places we’ve taken it,” says Tom. “People get very quiet. They go into themselves, and they tend to take their time exploring. Some people sit down and just gaze at it. Some people close their eyes. Enjoy the sound of the light. Some people do cartwheels.”

There’s a little scale replica of the Earth along with the sun.

“It’s quite a moment when you suddenly see Britain on the Earth, and you look at the sun, and you think, hang on. I know how big I am in relation to that and that. It’s a sense of the enormity about the responsibility that we all have for nature and our planet, and looking after it, because we’ve only got the one so far as we know, to care fo r. And I think a lot of people have those kinds of thoughts,” says Tom.

So far, so awe-inspiring. How has Tom seen people respond.

“It’s seeing people be themselves as they want to be, in relation to this,” says Tom.

“I’ve been in a park in London, in Lewisham at 10 o’clock at night as people got ready for the summer solstice, and the crowd just getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and there were kids playing and running around. I’ve also been up in Newcastle at Seaton Delaval Hall, where they sold out of baking goodies at 6am at a dawn viewing as the real sun rose. People want to come out, want to enjoy it, want to see it and bring it into their own lives.”

Bring Helios, and the National Trust, into your own life.

It’s at Devonport Market Hall 20-28 September, 10am-4pm, daily FREE. There are also events that go along with it.

The PRSD went along, too.