Raha Rastifard's The Fifth Element at Östergötland's Museum, Linköping: Public work

Raha Rastifard's The Fifth Element was permanently installed outside of Östergötland's Museum in Linköping, in 2018. The sculpture consists of two parts with their separate and collective functionalities; a metal sculpture made out of mirror-polished metal sheets and a light sculpture that creates patterns of shadow and light on the surrounding facades, making the museum walls act as a projection curtain.

 

The shape of the sculpture is inspired by Plato's fifth element – aether or quintessence – which he believed filled the cosmic regions of the universe above the terrestrial sphere. In Platonic philosophy, the dodecahedron (a three-dimensional form made out of twelve regular pentagons) represents this fifth element. For the Pythagoreans, it symbolized the regeneration of the cosmis, spirit or aether.