A person holding a small child stands beneath a large circle of evenly spaced illuminated spheres, each showing a reflected view of windows.

Your timekeeping window 2022

Your timekeeping window 2022 is a circle of 24 radiant glass spheres set into the gallery wall. While at first glance, the spheres seem to be illuminated from within, they are actually located in front of a window. Within each sphere a tiny image of the outside world – Brisbane city and the river beyond – is held upside down.

The curved surface of each sphere causes the view outside to be inverted, acting as a small, round mirror. Light passing through the transparent surface causes a combination of reflection and refraction.

– Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow

Low/no vision audio description

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Your timekeeping window 2022 occupies a section of gallery wall that stands 230 centimetres high, 200 centimetres wide and 16 centimetres deep. Twenty-four glass spheres embedded directly in the wall are arranged in a 2 metre circle, shining brightly as if illuminated from within.

The evenly spaced ring of spheres resembles the face of a large clock or the outline of a celestial body.

From a distance, the circle of spheres appears to emit light, glowing as if illuminated from within. Stepping closer, the effect is revealed as refraction. Each lens bends and redirects light from an existing window concealed behind the wall, producing a miniature inverted image of the outside world. The repeated views shimmer slightly as the visitor moves, their brightness and clarity shifting with position.

Although each image is nearly identical, variations in angle, intensity and distortion create subtle differences from lens to lens. The result is a continuous circle of refracted landscapes: 24 moments held in glass, repeating yet never entirely the same. The installation presents rhythmic echoes of light and vision, like a clock keeping time through shifting fragments of the world.

– QAGOMA

A close view of three recessed reflective spheres shows bright reflections of a large window grid, with the spheres glowing in pale peach and warm yellow tones.

Two people bend towards a ring of softly glowing spheres on a wall, each sphere reflecting bright window panes in pale blue and yellow tones.

Room: ‘Your presence’

Entering this gallery, it might seem we are again leaving Earth’s atmosphere and moving into space. Moving forward, we find ourselves approaching a vast ‘sun’, or perhaps it is another star.

Presence 2025 appears to move and shift with energy. Olafur Eliasson uses yellow monofrequency lights and layers of pattern to create a ‘moiré effect’ activated by our motion. Mirrors then expand the gallery beyond what seems possible, creating the impression of a complete sphere from only one-eighth of its full volume.

Evoking a circle of coloured moons, There are no bad parts 2025 contains a single glass sphere, but five more can be seen in the mirrors. Eliasson works with physics, optics, light; glass, paint and mirrors; he is also deeply interested in exploring how art might spark greater self-awareness. The artwork’s title draws upon psychotherapeutic ideas Eliasson has been exploring, inviting us to consider ourselves as a whole composed of multiple ‘parts.’ Are these parts fixed? Or, if heard and cared for, might their behaviour and roles change, just as the colours of the sphere change when we move?

In the gallery nearby, another radiant sphere is suspended, turning slowly to cast patterns of light and shadow on the walls. Firefly city 2025 offers a space for quiet reflection and contemplation: in this contained ‘city’, light is endlessly multiplied within nested geometries of mirror and glass.

The energy of our star, the sun, sustains our lives and our presence in this moment. Eliasson heightens our perception of what it means to move around – and beyond – this planet. He asks us to look within ourselves, as well as to perceive, recognise and welcome each other.

– Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow

Your timekeeping window 2022

Room: ‘Your presence’

Other works from ‘Your presence’:

Room: ‘Your presence’

Other works from ‘Your presence’: