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Olafur Eliasson says he wants the public to be the artist of his latest work, but it may not be a simple task: we are urged to rethink how we see planet Earth.
To commemorate Earth Day 2020, Eliasson has begun to launch what could be one of his most ambitious works, as it invites massive participation on a global scale.
The artist will launch, every hour starting at 10 a.m. on Instagram, nine images of the Earth in orange and pink with a dot in the middle. People should look at the spot for 10 seconds and then focus on a blank surface where a secondary image will appear in different colors. That is, in effect, our work of art: a new vision of the world.
Eliasson admitted that it was not an easy subject. “The wonderful idea of Earth Day allows one to step back, look at the planet from the outside and recognize that it is an object that is so difficult and impossible to understand. Somehow it escapes us.
“It is a bit like the weather, it is so vast and abstract and full of numbers and crazy … how can I help? Or do you have an opinion about it?
The work, titled Earth Perspectives, tries to encourage people to reflect on the coexistence of multiple worldviews. The image below is a kind of “icebreaker” for bigger conversations, Eliasson said. There are many ways to think about it.
“Perhaps it is not the planet that is in danger. In fact, it is us, the human race, that is dying out. The planet will be fine. Give it a few thousand years after humans have screwed everything up and Earth will prosper and turn green and be wonderful. “
The nine images of Earth will be displayed with different locations at their center. They include the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, which at 11,000 meters is the deepest trench on Earth and still a place where man-made plastics have been found.
Other places are the Great Barrier Reef, the Ganges River in India, the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the Simien Mountains in Ethiopia and Ecuador “because they are so incredibly progressive in nature rights,” Eliasson said.
There’s also Chernobyl in Ukraine, a fascinating story according to Eliasson in that it was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, but is now a place where rare and endangered wildlife thrives.
Eliasson said the project was to look at Earth from a distance, taking a step back to reconsider and redesign it.
He said he did not want to suggest how people should respond because “he will always end up excluding someone who is probably smarter than me.”
The Danish-Icelandic artist is probably even better known in the UK for his installation of the Project of Time at the gallery’s Turbine Hall in 2003. It was one of the most popular installations in Tate Modern history, with people lying down and enjoying the dazzling forgery. sunlight.
Eliasson returned to Tate Modern last year when he conducted the largest survey of his work with parts, including a mist corridor, which disturbed human senses.
His Earth Day work was commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery in London, part of his Back to Earth program asking artists, architects, designers and thinkers to respond to the climate emergency.
