We live in an era racing forward at unprecedented speed. Data multiplies infinitely at our fingertips, artificial intelligence continually conjuring new images that challenge even human imagination. Boundaries between the virtual and the real blur, as accelerationism venerates efficiency, dismissing stillness and contemplation as obsolete. 

Yet precisely in this moment dominated by speed and digital illusions, we face a paradoxical question. Our bodies are no longer guided by their inherent biological rhythms, but instead conditioned by immediate reactions to digital information. It is not machines that respond to our movements, but rather we who react to the signals and gestures of robots and data—an ironic reversal of agency. Within this landscape, are we gradually losing our innate human senses and rhythms? In recent works and exhibitions, artists James Turrell, Kimsooja and Lee Eunsun respond to this inquiry across generations and continents, employing sunlight, illumination and human perception as mediums to rediscover art’s intrinsic purpose. In their works, we witness a deliberate deceleration—an artistic resistance urging viewers to pause and reconnect with their senses. They reintroduce us to fundamental experiences of natural phenomena, from subtle shifts of sunlight to the quiet presence of reflected illumination, gently restoring our innate sensibilities. This intentional slowing of perception, created through embodied encounters, emerges as a necessary counterbalance to our digitally accelerated lives.

They reintroduce us to fundamental experiences of natural phenomena, from subtle shifts of sunlight to the quiet presence of reflected illumination, gently restoring our innate sensibilities.

James Turrell: Sculptor of light

Turrell regards light not merely as a material or physical substance but as an experiential entity shaped through meticulous study and experimentation. His work considers how the visual is integral, exploring the fundamental meaning inherent in the act of seeing itself. For Turrell, light is not a mere tool of illumination; rather, it becomes the very core of his creations.

In November 2021, atop Roden Crater in Arizona’s desert, after a long drive in a large truck driven by Turrell himself, he posed a question: "Does night fall from the sky, or does it rise from the ground?" As the sun vanished, casting shadows between sky and earth, I realised his inquiry was not merely a poetic metaphor but born from deep philosophical and physical curiosity. Turrell ceaselessly investigates the boundaries between light, space and perception.

Roden Crater, Turrell’s magnum opus, transforms an extinct volcano into a meticulously crafted observatory for astronomical phenomena. Notably, an 854-foot tunnel employs pinhole camera principles to project sunlight and starlight inside, allowing visitors an embodied experience of cosmic movements—deepening connections to light, time and the universe.

Turrell’s fascination with illumination emerged from his religious upbringing. Growing up in a Quaker household, he engaged with meditative practices emphasising "inner light”, profoundly influencing his approach to light as a transcendental experience. His youthful passions for sailing and gliding enriched his sensory interactions with nature, drawing inspiration from subtle shifts in atmospheric light.

His Ganzfeld series epitomises this exploration, immersing spaces in uniform coloured light, dissolving depth and form. Viewers confront perceptual disorientation, vividly experiencing how vision constructs reality. Skyspace frames the sky through precise openings, crafting optical illusions of shifting hues at dawn and dusk, emphasising our cognitive processing of visual experiences.

Currently presented at PACE Gallery, Seoul, Turrell’s recent works further articulate these inquiries. New pieces, including the premiere of Wedgework, explore the materiality of illumination, accompanied by documentation of Roden Crater, highlighting how light reshapes sensory perception.

Kimsooja’s light: Weaving existence

Darkness pauses briefly. A beam of sunlight slices through the stillness, dispersing into myriad colours, unveiling a new universe on the threshold between presence and absence. This moment anchors Kimsooja’s artistic practice. For her, light transcends visual phenomena, charting philosophical journeys into existence itself.

Kimsooja weaves rays of light as threads, stitching space like a delicate fabric. Her diffraction grating films capture sunlight’s trajectories, continually animating spaces into breathing organisms. Distinct from Western logocentric or heliocentric narratives, her luminous creations are deeply rooted in Korea's "Obangsaek"—the five cardinal colours symbolic of direction, season and elemental unity, reconnecting viewers with cosmic wholeness. Kimsooja’s philosophy reaches its apex in the acclaimed To Breathe, presented at the Korean Pavilion during the 2013 Venice Biennale. Emptiness filled the pavilion, inviting barefoot visitors to relinquish external identities and reconnect deeply within, bathed in spectral patterns of filtered sunlight. This meditative encounter facilitated profound self-awareness, harmonising inner stillness with external illumination.

At Galerie Lafayette in Paris in 2023, her interventions revived historical spaces, restoring lost colours beneath the iconic glass dome, offering contemplative refuge amid urban chaos. Her 2024 To Breathe – Constellation at the Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection expanded existential inquiries into the historical, employing reflective floors to invert spatial perception, transcending gravitational and cognitive boundaries, prompting fresh reflections on self, universe and the past.

Kimsooja’s message remains clear: in a digital age dominated by intangible screen illumination, her tactile works urge sensory restoration. Her crafted emptiness offers essential contemplative space amid informational saturation, encouraging existential exploration through tangible interactions with physical light. Recently awarded France's "Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”, Kimsooja dismantles dualistic boundaries, illuminating cosmic interconnectedness and existential depth, providing contemporary audiences a luminous spiritual compass.

In Kimsooja’s contemplative spaces, we experience the rare opportunity to pause, breathe and remember our intrinsic connection to the cosmos. Her environments subtly challenge our habitual perceptions, disrupting the relentless rhythm of digital immediacy to reconnect us with slower, bodily sensations. This gentle yet powerful shift reminds us that authentic presence emerges not through constant reaction to external stimuli, but through quiet attunement to our inner landscapes and the elemental qualities of natural light. By drawing viewers away from artificial glare into meditative illumination, Kimsooja invites us to rediscover our innate rhythms, restoring a vital balance between the self, space and the universe.

Lee Eunsun: Geometry of the sun

Lee Eunsun intricately examines the relationship between sunlight, time and human existence. For Lee, the sun is dynamic, continuously redefining its significance and emotional resonance with humanity.

Commissioned by the Jeonnam Museum of Art and on view until the end of this year, Triangular Sun (2025) immerses visitors in a 30-metre corridor, where sunlight permeates through tinted panels, creating waves of light that gently flood the space and slowly rise, washing over observers with evolving intensity. At midday, the corridor bursts into vibrant clarity, while at sunset, the softened hues invite quiet reflection and deeper contemplation. Triangular Sun poetically underscores the transient nature of perception, guiding us to rediscover and cherish the overlooked moments that quietly shape our experiences.

Lee’s Shape in Time (2016) installations deeply engage specific architectural contexts, visually narrating concealed histories. In Collective Blue (2017), mirrors juxtapose daily sky hues, poetically blending past and present. Observers perceive layered temporal dimensions, highlighting intertwined individual and collective memories.

A defining characteristic of Lee’s practice lies in her unique artistic stance and methodology. Her creative process begins with meticulous spatial analysis and rigorous data collection, yet she consciously relinquishes empirical frameworks at decisive moments, entrusting critical decisions entirely to intuition and sensory perception. This intentional fusion of objective precision and subjective insight enables Lee to uncover the inherent emotional resonance within spaces and their interaction with light.

Lee approaches space not merely as a physical environment but as a living, emotional entity. Utilising colour and illumination, she sensitively reveals the intimate narratives and subtle emotional truths embedded within architectural contexts. In Lee’s installations, viewers are gently guided to recalibrate their internal senses, finding resonance with the natural cycles of time and light. Her subtle yet deliberate orchestration of sensory experiences compels audiences to slow down and reconnect with the unnoticed intricacies of their surroundings. By restoring intimacy with the ephemeral and the ordinary, Lee’s work quietly challenges contemporary society's fixation on speed and immediacy, suggesting instead that true meaning often emerges in moments of quiet, mindful attentiveness.

Message to the future

Turrell, Kimsooja and Lee collectively advocate restoring sensory consciousness. Turrell retrains our vision, reacquainting us with subtle nuances often overlooked. Kimsooja revitalises tactile sensations, stitching humanity together through luminous threads. Lee sensitises us anew to temporal rhythms, reawakening our perception through sunlight’s daily paths. Above all, their artworks resist contemporary obsessions with speed. Turrell’s illumination demands patience, Kimsooja’s light invites stillness and Lee’s sun reveals itself solely through natural cycles of waiting.

While digital screens proliferate an intangible glow, our senses risk fading in artificial light. Yet, through Turrell’s careful retraining of perception, Kimsooja’s restorative illuminations and Lee’s reconnection to cosmic rhythms, art asserts itself anew. Art begins not with velocity but with depth; not with efficiency but with contemplation. Today, as ever, sunlight stitches together the universe, guiding us toward essential truths we must never lose sight of. Are you ready to consciously participate in a landscape sculpted by sunlight?

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of STIR or its editors.