Brisbane’s GOMA Will Transform Into An Indoor Riverbed At The End Of The Year
Once again, QAGOMA are pulling out all the stops for their latest exhibition, Presence, culminating in a vast, rocky landscape with a primeval spring of landscape running throught it. We’re talking running water and 100 metric tonnes of real rock that you can actually walk over (but please, no rock stealing).
The piece is known as Riverbed, and it’s the work of Berlin-based, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. This isn't the first time the installation has appeared in Brisbane—it first appeared back in 2019, as a part of Water, but this time it's returning as a Brisbane-exclusive exhibition dedicated to the three-decade career of Olafur Eliasson alone.
Other immersive installations included in the Presence exhibition will be a massive, all-white LEGO city perpetually built and rebuilt by visitors to the exhibition, a rainbow sunspended in a veil of mist and one that turns audio waves into spectacular visual phenomena. Basically, it'll be a multi-sensory journey through the mind of one of the world's most influential living artists that you can't miss.
Image credit: Ela Bialkowska | Supplied
Opening this December, the exhibition will take over the entire ground floor of GOMA, featuring more than 20 artworks by the artist from 1993 to now—including two new major installations developed specifically for Presence that explore the polarisation of light. Your experience will change entirely based on your angle of approach, as vivid hues flare unexpectedly and light bounces off a white wall to illuminate a dynamic transparent curtain that reveals multicoloured palettes unique to each viewer’s position.
The title work Presence 2025 is also bound to knock your socks off, taking the form of a large-scale immersive installation that will surround you in a yellow, monochromatic light evocative of the sun’s photosphere. You might want to keep your sunnies on hand.
‘The works exist most fully in our eyes, in our body, our movement through space, in our mind and senses—in our presence and perception,' QAGOMA’s Head Of International Art and curator Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow said. ‘Eliasson invites us to see the world from two or more perspectives, to playfully question the truth and substance of what we see,’
Tickets for Presence are $33 for adults and are on sale now here.
The Details
Where: QAGOMA
When: 6 December 2025 to 12 July 2026
For more info, click here.
Check out what else is coming up in Brisbane soon here.
Image credit: Olafur Eliasson