OREANDA-NEWS. October 9, 2012. The INTERPIPE STEEL Mill is pleased to present Dnepropetrovsk sunrise alongsidefour other new site-specific works by internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson, commissioned for the steel mill in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.

With 700 million USD invested by its founder Victor Pinchuk, the electric steel-melting INTERPIPE STEEL Mill is the first large-scale industrial plant to be built from scratch since Ukraine became independent in 1991. A signature project for Ukrainian society, it unites green state-of-the-art technology with five large-scale permanent masterpieces by Eliasson that are integral to the new factory.

Olafur Eliasson: “Art has the capacity to suggest visions, states of uncertainty, and new stimuli, whereas factories, to ensure smooth production, are of necessity governed primarily by order and predictability. I saw this commission as an invitation to co-develop a generous and welcoming environment; a setting where human values and needs come first, where a degree of unpredictability and aesthetic experience is embraced in the factory’s everyday life and in the city of Dnepropetrovsk”.

Victor Pinchuk: “We have the honor to invite you to an encounter with the future – in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Not a purely digital economy but a real factory. Not robotized labor but a place where humans are essential. Because there is no future without people. Not a soulless facility but a place where art feels at home. Major new works by my friend Olafur Eliasson commissioned as permanent installations – for the workers, the city, and society. I believe there is no future without the inspiration of art”.

Throughout his career, Olafur Eliasson has endeavored to bring art to people beyond the boundaries of the museum – into cities, people’s lives, and everyday consciousness. A number of these works – such as Erosion, 1997, Double sunset, 1999 and The New York City Waterfalls, 2008 – have introduced elements of unpredictability, pause, and wonder into urban contexts, in order to invite inhabitants to question their well-known environment and make space for new stimuli and perceptions.

Dnepropetrovsk sunrise, which was specifically conceived for the INTERPIPE STEEL factory workers and the city of Dnepropetrovsk, is an excellent example of this endeavor. The 60-metre-tall artificial sun can be seen from all points of the compass; illuminated by floodlights at dawn and dusk, it appears as a permanently rising or setting sun.

Traffic entering and leaving the INTERPIPE STEEL facility will pass through Your time tunnel, a series of arcs constructed from pipes produced at the factory. Your heat mural, a group of giant thermal images on the factory’s facade, gives an abstract impression of the invisible heat produced by the manufacturing process inside. Material is movement, inside the main factory hall, echoes the forms found in the outdoor works with a series of circular and elliptical yellow reflective discs that are installed above the workers’ heads like a rising sun. Workers walking through the elevated walkway that connects the administrative spaces with the production hall will find themselves reflected endlessly within the mirror-clad walls and ceiling of Your thinking bridge.