In the darkened space of the main gallery, the show’s eponymous artwork unfurled before the viewer as an evocative light show of shapes, colors, and shadows. The lenses used for this artwork – many from Eliasson’s personal collection or recycled from previous artworks and experiments – were at once the material for the exhibition and its conceptual inspiration.

Eliasson has long been fascinated with optical devices and has collected all sorts of lenses over the years as part of his investigation into perception and the qualities of light. “We live in an age of the proliferation of lenses,” the artist says, “not only in the surveillance cameras that pepper our urban space, but also in the hands of activists who are aiming them back at the instruments of power. Through recent conversations with the art historian Gloria Sutton, among others, I have become intrigued by the notion of the ‘ocular,’ as we progress beyond the single gaze of the panopticon to the decentralization of the authority of the lens. Today, many of us now carry lenses with us through our various devices, so the question arises – who is the owner of the narrative?”

In addition to the projection work, the exhibition also featured a range of glass and mirror works and watercolors inspired by the themes of color, transparency, and layering.