Doha, Qatar

“Shadows traveling on the sea of the day provides areas of shade where visitors – locals, residents of Qatar, art lovers, archaeologists, and tourists – can gather and meet up in the hot desert surroundings” states Olafur Eliasson. 

“Looking up at the mirrored undersides of the artwork and around at the artwork in the desert surroundings, they see themselves, the other visitors, and the environment in which they are standing entangled in the reflections above.”

Olafur Eliasson’s “Shadows traveling on the sea of the day” is reached by driving through the rugged desert landscape, northwards from Doha, past Fort Zubarah and the village of Ain Mohammed. 

The installation consists of 20 mirrored circular shelters, three single rings and two double rings that are meticulously placed along the desert landscape at the Northern Heritage sites near Doha.

One may already glimpse the artwork from afar, situated on the horizon like a small informal settlement or industrial site. 

When you finally approach the artwork on foot, the uncertainty of what you are in fact seeing may stay with you a little while longer. 

The landscape—a vast, sandy plane dotted with desert plants, traces of animals, and rock formations—extends around you for many kilometers in all directions. Perhaps the shimmering line of the horizon is the artwork’s outer limit.

Yet it is not only you who have journeyed to meet up with the artwork. 

Its cool, hospitable shadows travel slowly across the sandy ground during the day and more rapidly at dusk and dawn. 

Above you, in the ceilings fitted with large mirrors, you may also—with the right amount of patience—detect these cyclical journeys.

Looking up, you come to realize that you are, in fact, looking down—at the earth and at yourself. 

Above and below, sand envelops you, together with anyone else sharing the space. 

To test what you see, you might extend an arm and wave to yourself or wiggle a foot while looking at your reflection.

It is a kind of reality check of your connectedness to the ground. 

You are at once standing firmly on the sand and hanging, head down, from a ground that is far above you. 

You will probably switch back and forth between a first-person perspective and a destabilizing, third-person point of view of yourself. 

This oscillation of the gaze, together with the movement of your body, amplifies your sense of presence, while the curving structures seem to vanish into the surroundings, dematerializing and becoming landscape.

If you look at the clusters of sculptural elements unfolding left and right, you may notice quite an extraordinary effect: the array of mirrors connects and perfects what is physically distinct and partial. 

The mirrors each reflect their own semicircular support, completing them into perfect circles. 

The “neighboring” mirrors reflect the steel structures as well, creating a sea of interconnections. Reflection becomes virtual composition, changing as you move. 

What you perceive—an entanglement of landscape, sprawling sculptural elements, and visitors—seems hyperreal while still completely grounded. 

Eliasson’s installation joins over 100 commissioned artworks that will be on view across Qatar during the World Cup festivities 

Project: Shadows traveling on the sea of the day 
Architects: Studio Olafur Eliasson