Olafur Eliasson: Creating “Life”

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The award-winning Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is renowned for his work with sculptures, photography and installation art which explores issues around perception, climate and public response. For the past months he’s been working on his next project called “Life”, at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland this April and has granted In The Studio special access to follow his creative process. Olafur is on a mission to ensure that he doesn’t pre-empt his audience’s response to the final work- and that includes not releasing much detail about the project beforehand. But, as reporter Neil McCarthy finds out, it involves a major reconfiguration of the gallery – including removing the famous full-length gallery windows and flooding it with water from the outside lily pond. Reporter Neil McCarthy talks to Olafur at different stages in the execution of the work and also hears from the gallery’s Director Sam Keller about the technical challenges which will need to be overcome to create a work which poses many questions about the nature of space and environment – and which stays watertight! Reporter: Neil McCarthy. Produced by Emma Kingsley for the BBC World Service. Photograph of Olafur Eliasson by Brigitte Lacombe