将干燥植物压制成动物造型，是一种融合自然与想象的精致艺术实践。艺术家从落叶、花瓣、种子与枝条中挑选形态各异的元素，经过巧妙组合与拼贴，构建出一只只栩栩如生的动物图像。从一片微卷的叶子中可看出鸟儿的翅膀，碎花瓣排列成蝴蝶的斑纹，甚至一根枯枝也能成为鹿角的一部分。这种创作方式不仅保留了植物本身的自然纹理与色彩，也借由构图赋予它们新的生命与叙事。作品传达出人与自然之间深刻的联结，同时也唤起观众对生态循环与脆弱生命的思考。每一幅画面都像一首悄无声息的诗，在静默中讲述时间的流逝与生命的转换，让自然的微小细节凝固在永恒的美感之中。

Usually when a museum is flooded with water, something has gone seriously wrong. But at the Fondation Beyeler just outside the Swiss city of Basel, the flooding of the museum is all part of the show: a new site-specific installation called Life by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

The artist has removed one side of the Renzo Piano-designed building (with the architect’s blessing) and let the feature pond—usually separated from the climate-controlled interior by a large glass wall—into the museum. Visitors can navigate the waters, which are up to 80cm deep, using a series of walkways that run in and out of the building. At night, the interior is lit up with blue light.

Eliasson has also dyed the water a fluorescent green and filled it with pond plants, including water lilies and shellflowers selected by the landscape architect Günther Vogt. The water has been coloured using uranine, an organic dye that is commonly used to observe water currents, and which Eliasson has used previously for his Green River (1998) work where he dyed rivers in cities such as Stockholm, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

In an accompanying artist statement, Eliasson writes: “Together with the museum, I am giving up control over the artwork, so to speak, handing it over to human and non-human visitors, to plants, microorganisms, the weather, the climate—many of these elements that museums usually work very hard to keep out.”

The southern side of the building will be open to the elements for the duration of the show, which ends in July. Eliasson writes that “even if no human visitors are in the space, other beings—insects, bats, or birds, for instance—can fly through or take up temporary abode within it.” This possibility is very much part of the work, with the artist adding that when he first spoke to the museum’s director Sam Keller about ideas for the show, he thought to himself: “Why don’t we invite everyone to the show? Let’s invite the planet—plants and various species”.

The show is open 24 hours a day. “Visitors can access the installation at any time. After 9.30pm they do not need a ticket,” says a spokeswoman. She adds that, in terms of non-human visitors, so far there have been “insects, spiders, ducks, a goose and cats.”