Subversive, engaging and emotive…
Upon entering Olaf Eliasson’s dreamlike exhibition space the audience is welcomed into a truly unique, immersive experience. Olafur sets a mood of uncertainty, upon leaving the lift area, the audience is met with a strangely lit area which places a sepia filter on anything you picture. The environment feels colourless and sick, Olafur metaphorically and physically sets a filter on your reality.
Although much of the exhibitions theme is set around the worlds current climate state, the way in which the message is presented to its viewer has been executed in a distinctively unique way. Olafur wants his audience to see and feel the beauty in the world but also be emotive towards the way in which our climate is damaged. It is rare that (due to the urgent nature of the crisis) the message of global warming is presented in a way that is not just informative but artistic and thus far more engaging.
Walking though the room of coloured fog is both a beautiful and unnerving experience. The space feels stained by rich oranges and reds and instantly you feel emotional about this prediction of our future fog filled atmosphere.
Olafur’s use of different materials and textures to replicate that of natural ones, his clever manipulation of spaces using natural light allows the architectural objects he has designed be fully appreciated from every angle. Olafur ‘puts experience at the centre of his art’, he aims to awaken all of your senses and notice how they effect one another.
Perhaps the fact that your journey through this exhibition is almost impossible to do without the presence of others, encourages you to be aware of those around you and the responsibility you hold for one another both in the space and outside of it. The feeling of uncertainty of whats next, what will the next room hold? What will I feel when I enter the next room? This feeling of the unknown is consistent throughout and leads us to question, what comes next for our planet?
