SPEKTRUM by Nick Jaina
SPEKTRUM is a miraculous creation. It started as an art installation in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California in 2018. In that exhibit, guests walked one-by-one in silence through seven rooms, each a different color of the rainbow from red to violet. Even though the whole creation was made out of love, it still tapped into people’s latent fears of being tricked, and the experience was heavy with tension throughout.
For his 2022 auto fiction account of that installation, Nick Jaina adopted the second person present tense (“You step into an orange kitchen”) which gives everything that simultaneous sparkle of knowing magic while making you think that something terrible might be around any corner.
Nick Jaina
Nick Jaina is a musician and author living with his wife and stepson in Oakland, California. He has published three books, released over a dozen albums, produced several ballets, and composed various film scores. He teaches writing workshops online and in person, and hosts magical tea services that involve music, reading, and color immersion. He was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in 2015. He has collaborated with dancers from the New York City Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theater.