Rendering courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden
A lantern festival is a traditional celebration for which huge illuminated sculptures are built, depicting Chinese history and fable. The forthcoming Lantern Festival throughout the Missouri Botanical Garden (missouribotanicalgarden.org), May 26 to August 19, is indeed a doozy.
“It’s never been done in the U.S. in this way, with this number of set pieces, and never in a botanical garden,” says Lynn Kerkemeyer, senior manager for exhibits and events.
Among the first sights you’ll see: a 150-foot-long dragon at the garden’s entrance—beginning a theme that continues throughout the garden (during the Chinese year of the dragon). Above the pools by the Climatron, two giant dragons made of plates, cups, and saucers will appear to be fighting over an enormous pearl. “Every half-hour their heads move, smoke comes out of their mouths, and a flower emerges from the pearl,” says Kerkemeyer.
These formidable lizards will be among 26 large-scale “sets” created by 40 artisans from Zigong, China. Over the course of about two months, they’ll create the designs, stretch colorful silk across the sets’ frames, and light them from within using lanterns. The sets—including dragons, a three-story temple, sailboats, butterflies, lions, Buddhas, lotus flowers, and more—are lovely during the daytime, but positively dreamy at night.
“Truly, you would normally have to go to Asia to see this,” Kerkemeyer says.
