There have been multiple articles written recently about the future of museums and other cultural institutions in light of low visitor attendance, reduced revenue, and subsequent funding crises. To survive the current pandemic reality, we wonder, how will the museum reinvent itself? And who will do the reinventing? Will the main stewardship lie with the institutions themselves, or will it shift more towards the public?

A piece Olafur wrote about 17 years ago uncannily resonates with the situation today (notice his prescient use of ‘immune system’ and ‘virus’ metaphors):

‘As long as we have had art history, we have had the discussion about whether art should be referred to as a representational system (reflecting society like a mirror) or whether it is an integrated part of society itself. If we consider art as one of many cultural trajectories in a society, these questions are little different from asking if the weather is separable from the city. Of course the art institution is an integral part of the life of a city. Cultural institutions are among the many “immune systems” of a society’s self-reflection. When a “virus” such as the commodification of our senses attacks us, and the developing identity of the city’s life is challenged, the immune system is (or should be) active in restoring a plausible dialogue involving some sense of resistance. It is important to note here that I doubt whether art has any power to change things directly; I consider the field of artistic practice to be more like a giant laboratory, where research on multiple fields is constantly being conducted.’ – excerpt from Olafur’s text ‘Museums Are Radical’, from ‘The weather project’ catalogue, 2003

‘I think if we think of ourselves as being inhabited by organisms – or once free-living organisms [that are] now completely tethered organisms – that have their own needs, for food, for stimulation, for all sorts of sensory proclivities that I just mentioned, that we can find a continuity between living consciousness, awareness, and sensitivity, at a microscopic level and at a macroscopic level. I think that throughout biological history, fusion of different organismal types has been much underestimated as an evolutionary phenomenon, and we see this in social organization of people. We see a beehive or an ant hill as a phenomenon made of individuals but far beyond individuals and their capacity. E.O. Wilson describes Amazonian ants that stretch across many many trees and make structures with their bodies, that any of the ants by themselves could never survive, but as these massive communities, essentially cities of ants succeed in feeding and reproducing in ways that are unthinkable for the individuals. I think that that’s fundamentally the idea.’ – Lynn Margulis, Sputnik Observatory interview

How can this notion of a single organism having evolved from microscopic social organisation prompt us to reassess our fundamental assumptions about the individual? Where does the individual end and the community begin? And how can this questioning of the individual reshape not only how we see ourselves, but also how we see our place in our communities, in the more-than-human sphere, and as political agents? A beautifully detailed image of a single cell, comprised of countless, interdependent, thriving parts, seems like a good place to start.

‘It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not a belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. ... Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting.’ – Rebecca Solnit, ‘Hope in the Dark’, 2004/2016

'If we focus on a simple shape as it shifts, pulsates, grows, and shrinks in a darkened space, it becomes surprisingly easy to deceive our perceptual apparatuses, to upend what we know to be true, and to fool ourselves into asking: is the shape, in fact, simply growing bigger or smaller on a flat surface or is it moving closer to us and further away in space. The quiet atmosphere of Near future living light is defined by emergence and slow transformation. A spotlight, a black box, and a wall collaborate to form a space defined by abstraction that invites us to exercise our imagination in confronting how we normally see and navigate the world.’ – Olafur

Who is we?

The WeUsed.To platform carves out space for people to share their experiences of COVID-19. Perhaps through the wide spectrum of individual contributions we can find what thoughts, feelings, realisations, and insights we have in common. When writing a statement, users choose to frame their contribution using ‘I’ or ‘we’. An ‘I’ signals a clearly individual perspective, of course. A ‘we’, however, it more ambiguous. What perspective does that ‘we’ represent? Whom are we speaking for? ‘We’ can be an inclusive pronoun, acknowledging a broader community with shared concerns. And ‘we’ can be exclusive, sometimes inadvertently leaving out groups or elevating one ‘we’ at the expense of other ‘we’s. A particular use of ‘we’ is innocent to one user but will be exclusive and even unjust to others. As WeUsed.To has unfolded, ‘we’ the project initiators have witnessed this. And the complexity of ‘we’ has afforded in-depth conversations about how to deal with the term. Not only do COVID-19-related topics appear on the platform, but also concerns related to political events and race discussions. As authors of the site, we find it important to acknowledge the potential friction in ‘we’ statements while retaining the option for users to choose their perspective. The ‘I’/‘we’ choice is an invitation to actively become aware of and reflect on the communities we participate in, their scope, and their co-existence and/or overlap with other communities – or lack of the very same. It is an invitation to reflect on who speaks and for whom, and on what these speech acts do in the world. Visit WeUsed.To

'Today, where physical distancing guides our lives, it’s as crucial as ever that we surround ourselves with things and atmospheres that really matter to us. All elements of the WUNDERKAMMER play a role in my life. Some are objects that we normally take for granted – and I feel they should be celebrated like the wonders they, in fact, are. Other elements in the collection will be more experimental, such as light sculptures and objects that are invisible to the eye until you ‘catch’ them with your hand. The artwork is about challenging our perception of the everyday and actively welcoming that which lies on the boundary between the known and the unknown. It is about creating spaces that meld the everyday and the extraordinary – spaces that evoke vivid perceptions and embodied engagement.’ - Olafur

Weltlupe is at once a magnifying glass and a mirror – an instrument for perusal and self-examination. While the reader examines a text on the freedom of press closely through a convex lens, he or she is reflected in the concave mirror in which the lens is mounted.
In English, the text reads:

IF WE ALLOW THE FOLLOWING TO CONTINUE:

1. concentration of media ownership
2. repression of journalists
3. restrictions on and manipulation of social media
4. mass disinformation being legitimized
5. journalists being increasingly attacked by populist leaders

THEN READERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC ARE DEPRIVED OF THE ABILITY TO EXERCISE THEIR FREEDOM TO DRAW THEIR OWN CONCLUSIONS AND MAKE MEANINGFUL CHOICES IN LIFE

Olafur Eliasson (artist) and Kumi Naidoo (former Head of Amnesty International and Greenpeace) in conversation on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2020

OE: Kumi, thanks for talking with me. We’re still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and experiencing an acute need for global collaboration and empathy. With hourly updates, health facts, and strategies for curbing the virus being shared across the world, the freedom of press and unhindered access to precise information is as critical as ever.

KN: Looking at it on a global scale, the urgency of the moment – whether that is to tackle climate change, inequality, poverty or any present-day crisis – is to assert the right of ordinary people, citizens, to have access to high-quality, accurate and diverse media that allows them the capability to make informed decisions. We will never be able to make progress on these crucial issues if they are not able to addressed openly through the media. This poses a big challenge, not only the challenges that these crises bring, but also the challenge to communicate them in a way that is accessible and people are able to engage with.

OE: Yes, I think it’s a really important point that freedom of press affects everyone, all the way from heads of state and other people in power to the individual readers with a newspaper or a tablet in hand. I am particularly interested in emphasizing, as you say, that it’s also about the readers and about seeing them as co-producers. By ensuring the safety and independence of journalists and news outlets, we are also insisting on the right of readers to be given broad and balanced reporting from which to draw their own conclusions about what is happening in the world.

KN: What is the media landscape today? In the past, the reader, the listener, the viewer, were totally passive. But today, access to Social Media has changed this quite considerably and so in that sense I want to endorse the idea of co-creation. If you were to focus on the readers of today and their rights, then there are three: the right to read, the right to know and the right to participate or act.

OE: These rights very much overlap with some of the values that I think define the field of culture. As an artist, I strive to make artworks that open a space for the viewers to articulate their thoughts, dreams, needs, and values. And I hope that my works are felt to be welcoming and to reflect some of these thoughts and emotions. The meeting up of artwork and visitors, the dialogue that opens between them, which is fundamentally defined by trust, is what really interests me. Trust is absolutely urgent to preserve, both in the field of culture and in the media. They are meeting places for evaluating what goes on in the world and for people to feel they are a part of society. And so when we express our gratitude to and respect for journalists and their platforms on World Press Freedom Day, we are, in fact, also celebrating that which enables us all to be engaged citizens.

Earth perspectives makes use of a simple optical phenomenon – the afterimage – to create a bridge between the familiar and the unknown. The artwork envisions the earth we want to live on together by welcoming multiple perspectives – not only human perspectives but also those of nature. A glacier’s perspective deviates from that of a human. The same goes for a river. On Earth Day, I want to advocate - as on any other day – that we recognise these various perspectives and, together, celebrate their co-existence.’

- Olafur