A person in a hooded rain jacket sits on the roof rack of a white off-road vehicle tilted and sunk in moving brown water, with dark hills in the distance.

Cars in rivers series 2009

To create this work, Olafur Eliasson placed an advertisement in Icelandic media, inviting people to send in photographs of themselves stranded with their car when trying to cross a river. Beyond the capital, Reykjavík, and the more populated towns, there is a good chance of this happening in Iceland. Many roads are unpaved and it can be difficult to estimate a river’s depth, which can change swiftly, particularly in spring, as glacial meltwaters flow down from the mountains and plateaus. Fast-moving currents, concealed pits and unstable gravel banks all create challenges for drivers. More than 100 photographs were contributed, from which Eliasson selected the 35 that make up this series.

Sometimes the situations pictured are nerve-racking, sometimes more humorous. Together they convey the challenge of navigating the Icelandic landscape, suggesting stories of tragedy, adventure, problem‑solving, risk and rescue.

– Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow

Low/no vision audio description

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This work consists of 35 colour photographs, each about 23 by 34 centimetres in size, displayed in identical black frames. The images were submitted by different people in Iceland after Eliasson invited the public to share their own photographs of cars stranded in rivers, resulting in subtle variations in composition and perspective across the series. They are arranged in a strict grid of five rows by seven columns, covering a wall area just over one metre high and more than two and a half metres wide. The regular spacing and dark borders emphasise the visual rhythm of the grid, giving the installation a strong sense of order across the viewer’s field of vision.

Each photograph shows a car stranded in an Icelandic river. Some vehicles rest at precarious angles, their wheels half-submerged in fast-moving streams. Other cars are almost entirely engulfed, with only their roofs visible above the water. A few scenes capture attempted rescues, where people stand in the current or towing equipment strains against the flow.

The overall tones of the photographs are muted and natural, dominated by greys, browns and shifting blues of water and stone. Against this subdued palette, small flashes of colour stand out: a red car body, the bright blue of clothing, the orange of rescue gear. Snow, ridges and distant mountains appear in the background, situating the scenes in the stark Icelandic landscape.

Viewed together, the 35 images form both a documentary record and repeating pattern, underscoring the ongoing challenge of crossing Iceland’s rivers and the persistence of human attempts to navigate them.

– QAGOMA

A person stands with their hands on their hips on the bonnet of a red and white off-road vehicle, which is partly submerged in flowing water, with moss-covered cliffs rising behind them.

A yellow minibus sits partially submerged in shallow water while a blue tractor stands on a dark gravel bank in the foreground, with low hills in the distance.

A four-wheel drive vehicle is partially submerged in a river below dark volcanic hills and green moss, with snow-covered peaks in the distance under a pale sky.

Two people stand near a white off-road vehicle in shallow icy water. One person stands on the vehicle’s roof and the other is wading near the wheel, with snow-covered mountains across the horizon behind them.

Two people stand beside a silver four-wheel drive vehicle whose front end is stuck in broken ice, using poles to probe the frozen surface in a flat, pale horizon.

A red utility truck sits partially sunk in broken, slushy ice while a person walks nearby on firmer snow, with another vehicle visible in the distance across the snow-covered expanse.

Room: ‘Sources and rivers’

Iceland is Olafur Eliasson’s ancestral home. It is a place he has returned to throughout his life, from Copenhagen where he was born, and from Berlin where he now lives. This isolated volcanic island, its dramatic landscapes and atmospheric extremes all offer inspiration and raw materials which fuel his artistic process. This cabinet presents a sample of such references, alongside artworks they inspired.

Each item carries the history of how it came into being, and passage through the world. Weathered marine compasses evoke journeys across vast stretches of ocean, while a battered marker buoy no longer signals a secure place to anchor, or the submerged presence of a fishing net. Grey-brown volcanic lava stone bears traces of its emergence as magma from beneath the surface of the Earth, and builders’ plumb-bobs, each suspended from a string, once used gravity to aid in the construction of straight walls.

Eliasson assembles many such collections – these items offer a small window into those at his studio in Berlin. Over time, some of these materials take on new forms and become artworks. Bleached driftwood and other marine debris are transformed into a suspended ‘compass’ or painted in a vivid rainbow-like spectrum of colour. Wool from grey Icelandic sheep is knitted into geometries that echo volcanic basalt columns. Experiences are also collected: Eliasson created the Cars in rivers series 2009 from photographs (sent in response to a public call-out) of people’s misadventures driving through Iceland’s fast-rushing rivers.

All of these objects and artworks travel through time, crossing rivers and oceans. In doing so, they remind us of our search for direction, our own journeys and the stories we carry with us.

– Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow