Department of Cultural Affairs

Body, Nature, and the Threshold of the Future: Olafur Eliasson

In an era marked by climate crisis, information overload, and a sense that reality is being eroded, Iceland-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson creates reflective perceptual environments that invite viewers to engage, to observe, and to be transformed.

A group of islands shaped by tectonic uplift and rich in natural resources yet vulnerable to environmental challenges, Taiwan faces pressure from urbanization, industrialization, earthquakes, climate change, water scarcity, energy procurement, and environmental ethics. Through his exploration of light, air, water, and color, Eliasson reinterprets Taiwan’s environmental and cultural context as a place for cross-cultural, multi-sensory, and cross-thematic “experimental perception.”

Born in 1967 and raised in Iceland and Denmark, Olafur Eliasson studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1989 to 1995. Deeply inspired by the natural world, his reflections on space and perception would shape his artistic trajectory. 

After graduating, he founded in Berlin the Studio Olafur Eliasson (SOE)—an interdisciplinary collective comprising artists, craftspeople, architects, archivists, researchers, administrators, chefs, art historians, and technical specialists. 

Since 1997, his works have spanned installation, painting, sculpture, and photography, and have been exhibited in major museums and public spaces worldwide. Celebrated for his perception-based works that emphasize environmental co-creation, Eliasson has gained global recognition. 

One of Eliasson’s iconic works, The Weather Project (2003), was created for the Tate Modern in London as part of the Unilever Series. After representing Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale, the piece was installed in the Tate’s Turbine Hall. It featured a massive artificial sun composed of yellow lamps, fine mist, and a mirrored ceiling, immersing visitors in a surreal, light-filled atmosphere. 

People sat or lay on the floor, gazing up at the “sun” and their reflections overhead. The work explores our imagination of nature, the perception of climate, and collective behavior in public space, using art to spark reflection and dialogue around climate change and emotional response. 

The exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum features newly updated works, including The Last Seven Days of Glacial Ice (2024), a contemplative sculpture that weaves together science, temporal awareness, and cultural memory. 

Centered on the theme of “the velocity and stillness of time,” the piece captures a fleeting moment of natural glacial movement by “freezing” real ice in motion using cast bronze. It serves as a quiet tribute to the history and slow recession of glaciers. By transforming scientific phenomena into emotional symbols, the sculpture contrasts the shrinking volume of glass spheres with the growing solidity of bronze, visualizing material loss. 

The work’s data-driven, visual interpretation invites a perceptual shift—an ongoing dialogue between permanence and impermanence. Evoking a sense of “vanishing beauty,” the sculpture’s classical form conceals a quiet mourning for the disappearing ice, earning Eliasson a reputation as a “modern-day Da Vinci.”