At final stop in Manila, Olafur Eliasson's 'Your Curious Journey' invites contemplation on climate change

Manila is the final destination of "Your Curious Journey," the traveling exhibition of celebrated Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.

On view at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) until November 15, "Your Curious Journey" comprises three decades worth of Eliasson's work that puts front and center movement, environment, nature, and climate change.

There is the "Yellow corridor" (1997), where monofrequency light illuminates a narrow corridor with, well, yellow light, removing the viewers' ability to see pigments and limiting their spectral range to yellow and black.

The poetic "Beauty" (1993) features a curtain of mist that forms a rainbow, depending on where the viewer stands.

In the room right next to it, 2009's "Object defined by activity (then)" is like being inside a Nine Inch Nails song: In the total darkness, pulsating strobe lights reveal a small fountain in motion, with viewers seeing the fountain in a blip, as if in a photograph, captured in a moment of time. And despite the silence and the darkness, it proves an assault to the senses.

"Ventilator (1997)" is a lone electric wire attached to a cord, swinging irregularly overhead across the high-ceilinged room, propelled by the air it displaces.

Near the entrance, mountain on a wall by the large windows, is the "Moss wall" (1994), the largest iteration that the traveling exhibit has seen. Comprised of reindeer moss, it adapts to its environment, shrinking or expanding, changing colors, and providing fragrance as its environment allows. It will be interesting to see how the "Moss wall" will have changed by the end of the exhibition in November.

This is the first time Manila will see a survey of the celebrated artist's work and at Thursday's opening, Br. Edmundo Fernandez, President of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, couldn't have said it better.

"Olafur's work has long asked us to look closely at our environment — melting ice and shifting light, the fragile systems that sustain us," he said.

"That conversation would not be more urgent in the Philippines, a country that stands among those most affected by the climate crisis. This exhibition does not simply ask us to admire art. It asks us to pay attention to what is happening around us," he added.

And perhaps more importantly: how we contribute to what is happening around us.

On the second floor is the signature Olafur experience, the playful light installation "Your pluralistic coming together," where beams of filtered light are projected onto a vacant white wall. It is only when guests move across the room that the installation comes alive with colorful silhouettes in different sizes.

As such, it's become the busiest and liveliest room in any Olafur exhibition, whenever it is included. Guests often stay longer to dance and move, engaging in the installation and beaming with awe and wonder, first at the explosion of movement and color, and later at their contribution to the lively art installation.

It's a fun way to get us thinking of how to affect our surroundings. The more serious undertones of it is at the heart of the exhibition, right in the center of the first floor. "The Glacier melt series" is a collection of 30 pairs of images photographed 20 years apart showing how landscapes in Iceland are drastically changing because of melting glaciers.

Melting glaciers, as we all know, is among the results of human-caused climate change, a message deeply embedded in Olafur's artworks.

In her speech, Joselina Cruz, MCAD Manila's Director and Curator, said, "Eliasson speaks the urgencies of climate. Its language having transformed from change, crises, to emergencies. Realize that in the coming years and not your months, it will become disaster if we do not respond adequately."

Another artwork, "The last seven days of glacial ice" (2024) makes it even more tangible: Seven 3D printed bronze sculptures of ice blocks, based on scans from ice that the artist and his team collected from Iceland's famed Diamond Beach, sit on a display table.

They are arranged from largest to smallest, with spheres of glass placed right next to each.

Each sphere corresponds to the volume of water that has metaphorically melted from the ice block so that next to the largest ice block is the smallest glass sphere, and so it goes so that the smallest ice block is next to the largest glass sphere.

It is a strong visual representation of sea level rise — melting glaciers add water to the sea — which is yet another climate impact we face in the Philippines.

Sea levels across the Philippines are already rising three times faster than the global average of 3.6 millimetres per year, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has said this could accelerate to 13 millimeters annually.

It's alarming, yes, and quite a downer of a realization for an exhibit that's so fun and lively, interactive and playful. But that's exactly where Eliasson's powerful magic lies: His artworks should help you realize how you affect your environment and the natural world, how movement or activity can alter and define an object, and how we are all connected and the same, ruled by nature.

From Berlin, "Your Curious Journey" traveled to Singapore and then to Aukland, Taipei, and Jakarta before finally reaching Manila. It's a long voyage that Olafur creatively documented, and which is also presented in the show with "The seismographic testimony of distance."

Said Cruz, "When we leave the exhibition, I hope we're able to see color and light, water and wind, the glimpses nature reflected in a pool of water, or one similar mirroring surface, as valuable moments of wonder, and is an an invitation to respond fully to what it needs to be alive and human in the world despite all its challenges." — CDC, GMA News

MCAD, Dominga Street, Malate, Manila. Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm