Olafur Eliasson's 'Breathing earth sphere' seeks to breathe new life into Shinan County

Home > Culture > Arts & Design

Olafur Eliasson's 'Breathing earth sphere' seeks to breathe new life into Shinan County

Published: 17 Nov. 2024, 15:05 Updated: 17 Nov. 2024, 16:25

SHIN MIN-HEE
[email protected]

Installation view of ″Breathing earth sphere″ by Olafur Eliasson on Docho Island in Shinan County, South Jeolla [PKM GALLERY]

In the southernmost part of Korea is the country’s largest archipelago, Shinan County. Comprised of roughly 1,025 islands, only 77 are inhabited. The rural region is on the brink of going extinct due to population decline and aging. It’s also the farthest destination from Seoul, inconveniently requiring a boat or bus ride from Mokpo Station.

This endangered, humble county’s answer to revival was art. Olafur Eliasson, the celebrated 57-year-old Icelandic-Danish artist, devoted the past six years to building his latest sculpture “Breathing earth sphere” on one of Shinan’s islands. The artist has exhibited his large-scale installations at Tate Modern in London and the Venice Biennale.

Shinan's 'Graffiti Town' brings renowned street artists to rural Korea

The colorful spherical subterranean space, which welcomes visitors to walk inside, was built on Docho Island, which is smaller than one-tenth of Seoul with a population of a mere 2,374. The sculpture was commissioned by the county, which cost a whopping 4.7 billion won ($3.36 million) for the installation’s construction alone, according to Shinan County Mayor Park Woo-ryang.

Eliasson’s latest sculpture is part of the county’s ongoing ambitious Shinan Art Island Project to build 27 museums or landmarks, one per island, to boost tourism in the area. Shinan has invested 144 billion won into the project, with 16 completed as of now.

“Shinan became a place where people kept leaving, so it became our mission to make sure that the people left would still maintain their sense of pride in the islands,” said Kang Hyung-kee, the general producer who oversaw the Eliasson project, during a press conference on Friday.

“We wanted to make Shinan a place to return to, and our leeks and onions weren’t enough to do that. We began the project to entirely transform the resources native to Shinan through the power of art.”

Installation view of ″Breathing earth sphere″ by Olafur Eliasson on Docho Island in Shinan County, South Jeolla [PKM GALLERY]

Six years of persuasion, planning and construction were so troublesome that Mayor Park said he couldn’t bear to go through a similar process again, despite already moving forward with several more.

Yet the Shinan officials were brimming with passion, particularly appealing to the elderly, who make up at least 38 percent of the county’s population. Kang said they would write Olafur Eliasson in Korean on each senior citizen’s arm to help them memorize the name and realize the significance of the project.

Although Eliasson’s installation is finished, the county plans to plant large beds of crops like buckwheat, sunflowers and even rice in the sculpture’s surrounding area, the Docho Hydrangea Garden, which spans 3.4 million pyeong (2,777 acres).

“It won’t just be about looking at the sculpture, it will be one to look into,” Kang said, meaning that Eliasson’s piece will naturally harmonize with the “eco museum” the county hopes to create.

Map of ″Breathing earth sphere″ by Olafur Eliasson and the surrounding Docho Hydrangea Garden in Shinan County, South Jeolla [SHINAN COUNTY]

“Breathing earth sphere” was made by digging inside a hill within the garden. An open ceiling protrudes from the ground like a dome, allowing sunlight to directly shine on the underground surface, appearing like a mosaic of polyhedron tiles in colors of reds, greens and cyan.

Because the open ceiling has predominance over the general ambience of the piece, as it changes depending on the weather, it represents the unpredictability of art.

“The quote I think suitable for this is: ‘Politics is the art of the predictable, and art is the politics of the unpredictable,’” Eliasson said.

Stepping inside, the sculpture evokes a small planet. It’s as if you’re inside the soil, the earth, the belly of the planet, he explained. “You feel the breathing of the planet and you can breathe with it.”

He suggested that the meditative experience will alternate between 2-D and 3-D, meaning that any reality can become relative depending on how the viewer perceives it.

One attempt made by Eliasson to acknowledge his respect toward the terrestrial is by carving the tiles from lava stones, a natural material derived from ancient eruptions. This references the origins of Docho Island as well as all other islands in Shinan, which were formed through volcanic activity on the seabed.

“In the history of the planet, if the planet is one year old, human life is not even a second,” he said. “It’s interesting to see the way that we humans think we are so important and yet we are only just a small, recent incident in the livelihood of the planet.”

Olafur Eliasson [PKM GALLERY]

It’s why to Eliasson, creating “Breathing earth sphere” was introspective. He said he realized he had been “numb and insensitive” in humanity’s relationship with Earth.

“We have taken from this surface, the Earth, for centuries. We have taken wood from trees and cotton from the cotton flower. Nylon is made from oil from the ground. There are lamps here I think are glass, which is made from sand from the beach. So everything, essentially, comes from the planet,” he said.

“We have taken and used to make our livelihood better for centuries. When will we start to give back to who we took it from?”

The first step, Eliasson said, was to change our perspective. That’s where art comes into the picture.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]