Olafur Eliasson: Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage is a site-specific installation on the ceiling of an outdoor passageway at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The installation comprises seven LED rings that hang amid thirty large mirrors of polished stainless steel. The mirrors' shapes and arrangement are derived from the silhouettes and configuration of the free-floating ice found in the Parry Channel of the Northwest Passage between North America and the Arctic Circle. Humans and their movements through this passageway are reflected in the work, perhaps implicated as part of this consequential change, which will cause rising tides and eventually impact cities like Cambridge. The mirrored surfaces at times complete the suspended half-circles of light, which might read as setting suns, and at times fragment the reflected forms, suggesting disrupted routes or broken cycles. These optical illusions ask viewers to consider the impact of their physical position on what they see.