In early summer 2021, cognitive scientist Katrin Heimann, assistant professor at the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University and a member of the EER research group, was invited by Studio Olafur Eliasson to collaborate with the museum team at Fondation Beyeler in conducting a series of in-depth, micro-phenomenological interviews with a group of specially invited visitors to Life.

The visitors included museum staff from Fondation Beyeler’s educational team; pupils, aged 13 to 18, from a local school class from the Integrative Profile at the Zentrum für Brückenangebote in Basel, all of whom are of non-Swiss backgrounds; and a few friends of Studio Olafur Eliasson.

 

Life lives and breathes through the experiences of its visitors, both human and non-human. I welcome everything visitors bring with them to the artwork – their expectations and memories, thoughts and emotions. Katrin Heimann’s micro-phenomenological interviews offer unique access to these experiences and create an expanded understanding of what the artwork does and is. – Olafur Eliasson

The website experiencing-life.net presents some of the visitors’ experiences in visiting Life.