Olafur Eliasson: your curious journey: our sea of islands

Author

蘇嘉瑩, 林以婕, Studio Olafur Eliasson編/張君玫,徐振輔著/林麗君,葛浩文,王聖智譯

Language

ChineseEnglish對照

Publisher

Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Pages

152

Publication Date

2025/06

Binding

精裝

ISBN/Barcode

9786264100670

Collection

Product Dimensions

31.5x24公分

Book Description

Against the backdrop of the global environmental crisis in the Anthropocene, art plays a role in facilitating meaningful dialogue among nature, technology, and humankind. The touring exhibition “Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey” is not only an exploration of the senses and ideas but also a vital initiative by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum to address contemporary issues through artistic intervention. This marks Olafur Eliasson’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Taiwan, offering a multi-layered space where art mediates between natural and artificial environments in the context of embodiment, experience, perception, climate action, and more-than-human perspectives. We hope the result is a fostering of shared connections and concerns between global and local perspectives.
The exhibition “Your curious journey” features chefs-d’oeuvre spanning the artist’s career alongside new works. The selection highlights the subjectivity of the viewer while also reflecting humanity’s enduring curiosity about the world. From the rainbow in Beauty to the contemplation of climate change in The last seven days of glacial ice, these works stimulate cogitation about environmental symbiosis. Adrift compass combines driftwood from the Icelandic coast with geomagnetic positioning, always pointing north. Based on motion recorded during its shipment, The seismographic testimony of distance prompts reflection on how global logistics contribute to the journey of art. Object defined by activity (then), Life is lived along lines, Room for one colour, and Multiple shadow house create sensitive links between visual perception and the movement of objects and human bodies. Juxtaposed in the museum’s public space, Ventilator and The cubic structural evolution project invite rumination on the constant changes in complex systems. The exhibition poetically transmutes the artist’s profound emotions towards the world, in which the interplay between environmental changes and human behavior finds both subtle and profound expression.
Built upon conversations with the artist’s studio, this exhibition catalogue seeks to expand the idealities that art can encompass, using the concept of the journey as a guiding thread. Its subtitle, our sea of islands, draws inspiration from Pacific thinker Epeli Hau?ofa, who proposed that islands are not isolated and fragmented, but interconnected through the ocean. This vision aligns with the publication’s exploration of transspecies, transcultural, and transgeographic flows. Taiwanese sociologist Chun-Mei Chuang explores the deep entanglement between human and nonhuman life, drawing on Darwin’s theory of natural selection to challenge anthropocentrism and reveal the potential of trans-species co-creation in contemporary art and ecological thought. Meanwhile, writer Chen-Fu Hsu examines the intersections of language and identity through a migrant worker’s encounters with birds, which resonates with the historical currents of Taiwan’s Pacific frontier. Juxtaposed in this dialogue, these two texts offer diverse perspectives and narrative echoes, gesturing toward the multiple meanings of ‘journey’ within the shifting landscapes of global migration and ecological change. At once inviting imaginative openness and renewed awareness of the intricate web of life, they encapsulate the core spirit of this exhibition.