Have you ever bathed under a light
that creates the glow of a full moon,
sculpted beaches into miniature mountains
or breathed in the aroma
of Earth’s first trees?
These are some of the artworks I’ve made
to come to an understanding of deep time.
But what is deep time,
and why does it matter to us all?
The term describes
the history of the Earth
over a time span of millions of years.
My first encounter with deep time
came after I’d finished my studies,
had no job
and didn’t know what to do.
So I took off to work as a chambermaid
in the remote north of Iceland.
I was tilted on my axis
and began a series of explorations
to try to figure out
how to tell the story of deep time.
This has been the quest of my work,
and it’s taken me through the cosmos,
the geological strata of the Earth,
to encounters with
the earliest forms of life.
In Iceland I realized
that we live on a planet.
By opening my eyes
to the primordial landscape,
I started to understand
we’re not born out of nothing.
The sea, the sky, the Earth, the air:
we’re made of the same stuff,
we coexist.
In just my lifetime,
we humans have become a geological force.
We’ve caused glaciers
around the world to melt entirely.
I wanted to bring these distant landscapes
closer to our lives in a visceral way.
So of course,
I set up a phone line.
People everywhere could dial a number
and listen live to the sound
of a glacier melting.
(Ice cracks)
It was an elegy
to disappearing landscape.
(Glacier melts)
Can we connect to deep time
via sensory experience?
This artwork, called “Totality,”
brings together nearly every solar eclipse
documented by humankind
in a mirror ball.
Over 10,000 images reflect
the progression of a solar eclipse.
Their light surrounds us,
and we can feel mesmerized.
This led me to wonder:
What is the color of deep time?
I mapped the colors
of the entire universe,
from its very beginnings
to its potential ends,
discovering the pale blue hues
of the first stars
to the dark maroons of the last light.
Every single atom in our bodies was formed
in a star billions of years ago.
The remnants of stars make up all of us.
My vision was to gather
every dying star across the universe
and make a map.
The result:
over 27,000 supernova,
stellar black holes
and gamma-ray bursts
shimmer as pinpoints of aluminum.
What you see is a graveyard of stars,
yet it alludes to life.
The journey we humans have been on
to arrive right here
is nothing short of a miracle.
“Fossil Necklace” is a string of worlds
made of the material of life itself.
Each bead is carved from ancient fossils
and strung geological epoch by epoch.
The beads chart major moments
in Earth’s history.
The first single-celled life,
the first flowers,
the first creatures to see
and to fly.
“Fossil Necklace” speaks
to our long continuum.
Every day we walk past trees,
but do we stop to think
that they are our cousins?
We share so many of our genes with trees,
and forests give us our breath.
I wanted to honor them
by creating a sculpture
made of every tree type on Earth.
This is “Hollow.”
Designed with architects Zeller & Moye,
it brings together
over 10,000 tree species
spanning millions of years.
We were donated wood samples
from almost every country:
the Indian Banyan,
the White Mulberry,
the Dawn Redwood
and twigs from sacred forests around us.
Looking upwards into the light,
we see the most threatened
tree species of now.
More recently in my practice,
I’ve come to believe that looking forward
is just as important as looking back.
How do we speak to unborn people?
How do we build a bridge across time?
I thought the world's literary voices
may be the best at doing that job,
so I proposed a library of the future:
a forest,
a room,
100 authors and 100 years.
It started in 2014.
On the outskirts of Oslo,
we planted a thousand baby Spruce trees.
When they’re fully grown,
they’re going to be cut
and made into paper.
Every year for 100 years
a different author is invited
to write something new.
Their words will become
an anthology of books
printed on paper made from these trees,
only to be read in the year 2114.
The core of Future Library
is time and longevity,
but also hope and rituals.
Every spring, we take
a pilgrimage to the forest.
Authors hand over their manuscript
and announce its title.
Their text will be stored here
in Oslo’s new library.
You take off your shoes,
you step inside.
Each glass drawer holds a manuscript.
100 years is not vast in cosmic terms.
Yet if my young son
lives to read the books,
his world is likely to have changed
beyond recognition.
Will human beings survive
to read the books?
Future Library is a century-long prayer.
Future generations
may be invisible to our eyes,
but we are connected through our actions.
I wanted to see to future readers,
“I see you.”
“We see you.”
Why does connecting to deep time
matter to us all?
Shortsightedness may be the greatest
threat to humanity.
To be human is to understand
that we’re part of a long continuum.
Let’s embrace our cosmic context,
respect our origins
and hold our future close.
Thank you.