Artist Olafur Eliasson’s new work in Qatar spotlights climate change

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DOHA: Positioned in Qatar’s expansive Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve, about 64 km northeast from the capital Doha, are 12 site-specific installations created by Icelandic Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.

The artist’s momentary pavilions glisten within the desert daylight and seemingly talk with the pure phenomena round them — wind, solar and sand.

They’re a part of Eliasson’s first-ever solo exhibition within the Gulf happening inside the desert panorama and on the Nationwide Museum of Qatar all below the title “The Curious Desert.” The works on present on the museum span a wide range of intervals from Eliasson’s profession, one which has constantly appeared to make use of modern artwork as a platform to debate essential points associated to the fragility of the pure setting within the local weather disaster age.

On the Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve, every station consists of a round construction and lined with cloth that flaps within the wind. “Your Obsidian Backyard” incorporates black, shiny obsidian that instantly contrasts with the colour of the desert sands. The work, impressed by Eliasson’s hikes via volcanic obsidian fields within the Icelandic highlands, nearly appears to have erupted from the bottom. In one other, “Photo voltaic Incense Burner,” a single glass sphere makes use of solar rays to ignite a wide range of scents inherent to Qatar and the encircling Gulf area, corresponding to oud, musk and amber. Every scent burns for precisely one hour, itself functioning like a clock marking the instances of the day via scent.

“The works reply to the desert and to nature but additionally ourselves inside that relationship as properly,” Eliasson advised Arab Information.

Whereas the primary of the three outside artworks look at optical phenomena and man’s relationship with nature via shadows, rainbows and mirrors that create highly effective and alluring results, installations quantity 5 via seven incorporate revolutionary drawing machines that use components from the sabkha habitat in Qatar to create artworks that can later be proven at Eliasson’s exhibition on the Nationwide Museum of Qatar.

“These artworks are a strategy to focus on what geopolitics doesn’t say — it’s a strategy to join near native tradition and to the pure setting,” the artist mentioned.

The ultimate three artworks merge pure phenomena from different areas of the world with these present in Qatar, together with obsidian and glacial mud from Iceland.

“It’s a unprecedented alternative to create artworks for the sabkha close to Al-Thakhira Mangrove Reserve,” the artist mentioned in a press release. “The solar, the wind, the close by lagoon saltwater — all of them assist co-produce the artworks that guests will encounter right here.”

Whereas creating the artworks, Eliasson and Qatar Museums labored with an ecologist to conduct an in-depth survey of a website close to Al-Thakira to make sure the safety of its native vegetation and dwelling, non-human, beings, just like the Arabian pink fox.

“I hope the artworks additional (expose) folks to the wonder and significance of the pure panorama and the non-human companies that work inside it,” he advised Arab Information.

“Tradition can result in change for the local weather, too,” he added. “It’s typically on the subcultural stage that civic society will be modified and enhanced, and this then pushes policymakers, the legislators after which the politicians. Tradition will be a part of the meals chain for world change.”

The museum part of the exhibition options key works reflective of Eliasson’s work and ideas over his 25-year profession.

Of observe is “The Residing Lighthouse” (2022), an set up that features broad bands of colourful gentle that wrap round a round room and alter type and coloration in accordance with the actions of every customer.

There’s additionally “Analysis Map” (2019), a wall crammed with analysis and concepts akin to that of map charting the artist’s reflections and inspirations over latest years.



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