AS part of the Serpentine Gallery’s Back to Earth initiative, Olafur Eliasson’s new artwork is open to all for Earth Day. Eliasson’s new participatory artwork, Earth Perspectives reflects on the co-existence of multiple world views. The Serpentine’s 50th Anniversary launched their Back to Earth programme, inviting leading figures from the art world to propose artworks and projects as a call to action for climate change.
The first image was revealed today on Instagram for Earth Day. A further eight images will be posted every hour throughout the day. Each one with a different view of the planet for you to experience.
Eliasson has created a series of nine images of the Earth, each of which has been abstracted by turning the planet on a different axis. On each image there is a “dot” which, marks a particular spot on Earth. These scenes range from Chernobyl to the South Pole. If you stare at it for ten seconds, and then train your focus onto a blank surface, an afterimage appears in the complementary colours of Eliasson’s visual. You can literally project a new world view.
Olafur Eliasson, Earth perspectives, 2020, The Earth viewed over the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
The work explores how maps, spaces and the earth are all subject to individual perspectives. In this unprecedented time of isolation and distance from communities and collectivity, Eliasson urges us to view the Earth from other perspectives.
Olafur Eliasson said, “Today, ‘the world as we know it’ is a phrase of the past. The current health crisis has brought our societies close to a halt, affecting our economies, our freedoms and even our social ties. We must take the time to empathise with all those struck by the crisis and also seize this opportunity to imagine together the earth that we want to inhabit in the future – in all its wonders and beauty, in the face of all the challenges ahead of us.
On Earth Day, envision an Earth we all want to live on together, plants, animals and nature by welcoming to the multiple perspectives of Eliasson’s work.
by Rosie Fitter
The artwork will also be available for download at olafureliasson.net, serpentinegalleries.org and the Bloomberg Connects app.