Flooded, Livestreamed, Transformed: Olafur Eliasson and the Post-Pandemic Museum
Abstract
This article examines Life, an art exhibition by Olafur Eliasson, as a case study for rethinking the museum in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on critical perspectives from Paul Valéry, Theodor W. Adorno, Douglas Crimp, and Brian O’Doherty, the essay analyzes how Eliasson’s intervention suspends and reconfigures dominant regimes of exhibition, from the encyclopedic accumulation of objects to the modernist “white cube”, by materially flooding the institution, removing architectural boundaries, and enabling new sensory interfaces. The analysis also considers the role of live-stream technologies, which multiply mediated standpoints and simulate non-human perspectives, thereby challenging anthropocentric assumptions of spectatorship. Engaging Natasha Myers’s notion of the “Planthroposcene,” the essay situates Life not as a definitive ecological paradigm but as a performative experiment in plant-human cohabitation under curatorial and technological mediation. Combining critical theory with close description of the work’s material and institutional conditions, the article argues that Life anticipates a post-pandemic museum that is porous, ecological, and in continuous transformation.
References
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- Eliasson, Olafur. (2021). Life at the Fondation Beyeler. Apollo Magazine. https: //www.apollo-magazine.com/olafur-eliasson-life-fondation-beyeler.
- Eliasson Olafur. (2025, september, 1st) https: //olafureliasson.net/exhibition/life-2021.
- Myers, Natasha. (2017). From the Anthropocene to the Planthroposcene: Designing Gardens for Plant/People Involution. History and Anthropology 28 (3), 297–301. https: //doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2017.1289934.