Olafur Eliasson

“Green light is an act of welcoming, addressed both to those who have fled hardship and instability in their home countries and to the residents of the cities receiving them. Working together in a playful creative process, participants build a modular light and construct a communal environment in which difference is not only accepted but embraced.”
–Olafur Eliasson

Green light is a project initiated by artist Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. Conceived as a field of production and mutual learning, Green light works with refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and NGOs to fabricate an unlimited edition of fully functional lamps: geometric, stackable modules made from recyclable materials and fitted with a welcoming green light. Providing fundraising and education opportunities, Green light workshops first took place in Vienna in 2016, and have since been hosted at the Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, and the 57th Venice Biennale.

Green light expresses itself as both a comment and an active response to the legal and social obstacles refugees and asylum seekers face in accessing education, the labor market, and social life. As a social and artistic experiment, it sets out to explore the possibilities and agency of art and cultural institutions in the face of challenges and potentials posed by migration.

This publication seeks to question and reflect on the project by providing testimonies, stories, and memories by Green light participants, founders, and organizers, as well as essays by art historians and theorists reflecting on the relationship between culture and migration today.

Copublished with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary