‘Every evening we unfold the light, and every morning, fold it back, to return the blue to the sky.’
The US artist James Turrell has made a career of manipulating light and space, creating ‘new worlds’ that force viewers to confront the fluidity and fallibility of their own visual perception. Born into a conservative Quaker family, Turrell got his start building meeting houses – quiet, simple structures where Quakers are meant to ‘greet the light’. James Turrell: You Who Look is a visual and verbal paean to the artist’s celebrated career, with an emphasis on Roden Crater near Flagstaff in Arizona, a ‘place between the Earth and the cosmos’, a ‘natural-light observatory’ built into an extinct volcano – a work that has been 45 years in the making and is still unfinished.
Director: Jessica Yu
Producer: Izabela Frank
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Art
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
What do screens depicting serene natural scenes mean to those living in lock-up?
12 minutes
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Architecture
A lush tour of Fallingwater – the Frank Lloyd Wright design that changed architecture
14 minutes
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Art
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
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Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
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Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes