Introducing the ultimate solar-powered lighting package: the Little Sun Original and Stand combo! The iconic Little Sun Original, designed by artist Olafur Eliasson, offers high-quality, portable solar-powered light perfect for camping, festivals, and more. Kids love it as a nightlight or for playtime, making it a fantastic tool for teaching sustainability. Pair it with our versatile Stand accessory to transform your Little Sun Original into a desk lamp, reading light, or even a party centerpiece.

This Little Sun tote is the perfect companion for your sustainable adventures. It is based on the idea of working with a central, natural source of energy to bring power to everyone. The outline of the circle sits in the center of the tote bag, representing the sun and the renewable energy cycle. The yellow handles represent the everyday act of holding hands with the sun through the Little Sun project.

Drawing inspiration from Olafur Eliasson's captivating artwork Symbiotic seeing (2020), this umbrella adds a touch of artisty to your daily routine. Whether you are strolling through the city or exploring nature, let this umbrella accompany you in both style and functionality.

Capture the essence of the exhibition with our limited-edition postcard. Perfect for collectors, art enthusiasts, and anyone seeking to delve into your world of curosity.

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is internationally renowned for installations that challenge the way we perceive and co-create our environments. Approaching issues such as our changing understanding of climate, time and space, this exhibition showcases a range of artworks that immerses audiences within a shared experience. This catalogue features full-colour documentation of the artworks, complemented by a curatorial essay and newly commissioned texts; a conversation with the artist as well as itinerant marginalia that illustrates the entanglements between his practice and artistic approaches.

Available for purchase from the Epigram Coffee Bookshop at SAM, Level 1

Retail price: 40 SGD (inclusive of GST)
Details: Softcover, 152pp
ISBN number: 978-981-18-8614-0

In Beauty, a fine sheet of mist, reminiscent of a light drizzle, is illuminated by a singular spotlight in a darkened space. When viewed at just the right angle, a prismatic reflection of light reveals itself—a luminous rainbow that illustrates its namesake: beauty. Eliasson leaves Beauty’s mechanisms in full view—a simple combination of a spotlight, a punctured hose and us, the viewers—paring the rainbow down to its most essential constituents and demonstrating his continued interest in the formation of natural phenomena. Though the water is constantly flowing, the appearance of this apparition varies depending on our position relative to the artwork. As light is refracted and reflected on the water droplets differently, no two viewers see the same rainbow. The subject of Beauty is thus both the light and the viewer, which begs the question: Does the rainbow exist independently, or does it exist because we perceive it? This reflexivity that Beauty facilitates—combined with the exposed apparatus of the work—heightens our awareness of the very act of perception and our experience of seeing.

Collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Installation view of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Beauty’ (1993), as part of ‘Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark; Photo: Joseph Nair, Memphis West Pictures; Image courtesy of the artist and Singapore Art Museum; © 1993 Olafur Eliasson

Object defined by activity (then) consists of a water feature housed in a pitch-dark room. Its exuberant bursts of water are lit solely by a strobe light, which flickers ceaselessly at an aggressive tempo. Illuminated each time for a mere fraction of a second, we are barely able to register each fugitive image of the water’s mesmerising, organic and ever-changing form. While the consistent, uninterrupted sound of running water grounds us in real time, the work’s speed, high-key lighting and relentless, stroboscopic siege of spectacular imagery fragments and freezes this ongoing process into a multitude of micro-fissures in time. At once a dynamic physical installation and a series of still, fleeting frames, Object defined by activity (then) is perceived as simultaneously kinetic and static.

In Symbiotic seeing, the ceiling of a room seems to inhabit three states of matter at once. At first glance, it may appear flat and solid. Yet, upon closer inspection, this ceiling reveals itself to be a layer of liquid skin, with tiny swirling and eddying ripples. These effects are the result of coloured laser lights coalescing with periodically released fog. By incorporating ephemeral materials, Symbiotic seeing appears to occupy a liminal space between physical states and becomes an organic environment for contemplative movement that unfolds both personally and communally.

Symbiotic seeing is one of the two exclusive artworks that will only be showcased in Singapore as part of this travelling exhibition.

Detail view of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Symbiotic seeing’ (2020), as part of ‘Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark; Photo: Joseph Nair, Memphis West Pictures; Image courtesy of the artist and Singapore Art Museum; © 2020 Olafur Eliasson

The cubic structural evolution project encourages active participation in the reforming of a Lego cityscape. Strewn atop a long table are heaps of white Lego bricks amongst towering skyscrapers and imaginative complexes. These buildings can be constructed and deconstructed, often at the same time, according to the whims of those seated around the table. By inviting us to add our own architectural masterpieces, Eliasson creates a welcoming space for free play and creativity. The cubic structural evolution project is an artwork that does not have a final form; it is made complete through our spirited engagement.

The cubic structural evolution project is one of the two exclusive artworks that will only be showcased in Singapore as part of this travelling exhibition.

Collection of Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Light features as a tensile material and marker of space in Yellow corridor, in which a row of monofrequency yellow lights illuminates the passageway between two galleries. At its most concentrated, the light desaturates everything it touches into shades of grey, limiting our visual spectrum of colours to a reduced range, which most are unaccustomed to. Here, Eliasson facilitates a somatic experience with the passage, which usually functions as a utilitarian connector between gallery spaces. Whilst Eliasson has applied similar monofrequency lights in other contexts, Yellow corridor is notable as an early example of his sustained interest in real-time colour grading. Towards the end of the corridor, the harsh yellow lights are tempered by the daylight streaming in from the museum’s windows, allowing us to gently transition back from an altered sensorial state.

The Juan & Patricia Vergez Collection, Buenos Aires

In Circumstellar resonator, light is passed through a prismatic lenticular surface, before splitting into multiple rings that radiate from a central point. It draws upon the principles of a Fresnel lens, a piece of glass that captures peripheral beams from a single source to produce an intensified beam of light. Fresnel lenses were used in lighthouses to transmit light to ships farther out in the open sea and guide them to safe harbour. Circumstellar resonator’s bands of light are a different kind of beacon, extending the scientific properties of this invention beyond practical applications and tuning them towardsan aesthetic experience.

Walking into the installation space of Life is lived along lines, we first encounter the rear face of a projection screen with shadows cast upon it along a horizontal line. These shadows hint at what lies behind. Laying bare his methods of production, Eliasson allows us to walk around the screen to discover the apparatus that flattens three-dimensional forms into two-dimensional outlines—five object models, a set of blinds and a spotlight. As the object models rotate slowly along a central axis, their shadows follow suit. This shared movement creates synchronicity between the image and the object, reminding us that they are but two sides of the same coin.

Drawing machines feature prominently in Eliasson’s practice, including the series The seismographic testimony of distance (Berlin–Singapore, no. 1 to no. 6). Despite incurring higher levels of carbon emissions, goods are often transported by air for expedience, and artworks are no exception. Mindful of the exhibition’s carbon footprint, the artist chose to ship most of the artworks shown in Your curious journey to Singapore by sea instead. To document their journey across land and sea, six rudimentary drawing machines were included in the shipment. Set up over blank paper sheets, ballpoint pens were attached to each mechanical arm and allowed to run free, marking every bump and turn the crates took, resulting in a series of unique seismographic sketches.

The seismographic testimony of distance (Berlin–Singapore, no. 1 to no. 6) is a new work that will be shown at SAM for the first time.

The susceptibility of grandiose glaciers to climate fluctuations is emphasised in The last seven days of glacial ice. A single ice block, originally found on Diamond Beach in the south of Iceland, was visualised in its various stages of melting. Each stage, cast in bronze, evokes a semblance of permanence. Every cast is paired with a clear orb of glass—a volumetric representation of the water that was lost. As an exercise that may be described as elegiac data visualisation, The last seven days of glacial ice prompts us to consider the steady process of degradation, and the sum total of what is lost in the process.

The last seven days of glacial ice is a new work that will be shown at SAM for the first time.

Installation view of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘The last seven days of glacial ice’ (2024), as part of ‘Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey’ at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark; Photo: Joseph Nair, Memphis West Pictures; Image courtesy of the artist and Singapore Art Museum; © 2024 Olafur Eliasson

Located squarely within Eliasson’s relationship with Iceland is Moss wall. An organic, vertical carpet, this work comprises reindeer cup lichen (Cladonia rangiferina), also known colloquially as “reindeer moss,” which is a symbiont of at least one fungus and one alga and covers immense areas in northern tundra and taiga ecosystems. Here, the lichen is woven into a wire mesh to blanket an entire gallery wall. Disrupting an otherwise homogenous museum space, it collapses the boundaries between interior and exterior, bringing one of nature’s great wonders directly to the audience as they come face-toface with a living and breathing wall.