Room for one colour 1997

Curator: Olafur Eliasson's "Room for one colour," a site-specific installation from 1997, bathes this gallery in a single frequency of yellow light. What's your immediate reaction to it? Editor: Drenched! It's intensely, overwhelmingly yellow. A kind of artificial sunbeam with high contrast! Almost hallucinatory...it makes me consider ideas surrounding sensory deprivation. Curator: That aligns well with Eliasson's interests. He is often playing with perception and how it is conditioned by social forces. It critiques the perceived naturalness and purity often afforded to optical perception by challenging these same principles, while creating unique phenomenological experiences. Editor: You know, that resonates! I notice that familiar colours seem subtly altered here. Orange and red may become almost indistinguishable, while blues are likely suppressed. It’s a disruption, maybe an almost utopian idea of starting with the same common baseline? Curator: Exactly! Color, light, space – all become tools for re-evaluating our relationship to reality. Think about the late 90’s when this was made – rave culture was on the decline, yet hallucinogens and experimental practices were being scrutinized across different levels of western society and the War on Drugs was targeting people with color. How does Eliasson address that discourse here? Editor: Interesting point. Now I'm seeing something else in this monochrome: a space devoid of context or specific meaning other than pure light and color. A womb perhaps, bathed in the comforting sunbeams our cells crave as humans from different geographical locations around the world. Color in this way is a symbol, which he disrupts and reinterprets! Curator: Right! There's a strong discourse relating to phenomenological presence in Eliasson's conceptual gesture. Editor: That said, beyond theory, it still delivers such an emotional experience; this bright, immersive space certainly evokes a sense of otherworldly tranquility and calm in my nervous system! Curator: I agree, its sensory impact invites personal, reflective engagement and invites each visitor to experience its narrative!