Mercy Movement: Drawing with Light by Lori Hepner

Artwork Location: Level 1 Uptown Café 

Since 2019, neurodiverse artist Lori Hepner has created programmable LED devices to use in community centered projects. People can wear or hold these devices to draw with light using movement.  

To create Mercy Movement: Drawing with Light, Hepner hosted two artmaking workshops for UPMC Mercy patients, staff, healthcare providers, and neighbors. The video shows participants discovering how to draw with light while wearing the devices or holding the light sticks. Hepner used the devices to trace people and create silhouettes.  

Hepner uses the workshop documentation to create digital photographs based on the light drawings. The two photographs framed in the Uptown Café feature the movement drawings and silhouettes from these workshops. The artist created the video below from the drawings people created in the workshop. 

“The participants are pretty surprised when I turn on the LEDs. Once they realize that they can make drawings with light, they exaggerate their movements and start to be more purposeful. Through this process people who aren’t artists can have fun and be amazed that we are living in the future where we can draw with light in this way.” – Lori Hepner