Inverted Campfire Series

Although a series of photographs, Olafur Eliasson’s Inverted Campfire Series has an almost painterly quality. He captured the Icelandic tradition of lighting bonfires on New Year’s Eve to burn the old burdens and banish the evil spirits of the past year. Ten black-and-white photogravures show the scenery from a distance. By inverting the images, the depicted people themselves become the ghostly figures they try to dispel.