Get Lost In A Multicoloured Mist At Wellcome Collection
Last Updated 16 October 2015
We first came across Veronica Ann Janssens in the excellent Light Show, discovering that, much like fellow artist James Turrell, she likes to give light a density and a lack of transparency it doesn't normally possess.
Janssens's work, States of Mind, has taken over a room on the first floor at the Wellcome Collection and the effect is astounding. Visitors must enter through an airlock-style system, before wading into a multicoloured mist contained within the room.
It's a surreal experience to proceed through the fug, which changes colour as we venture further in, from pink to yellow and finally to blue (the darkest shade and the hardest to see through). It's pretty disconcerting to see nothing in front, then a silhouette before a person finally materialises. Running into people we knew was a strange experience, as they claimed we had simply 'emerged'.
Despite this, standing in the mist is a calming and meditative experience, and we imagine it would be more so if there were fewer people in the room.
Speaking of which, the exhibition has a limited capacity, and visitors may have to queue. While waiting there are other optical illusions on tablets outside to keep people entertained and thinking about how their minds play tricks on them to make the air around them feel like it has density.
Though there may not be further depth to States of Mind beyond the experience itself, that doesn't stop it from being a meditative and memorable experience.
States of Mind: Ann Veronica Janssens is on at Wellcome Collection until 3 January 2016. Entrance is free. Also still on at Wellcome Collection is the last few days of the copper mummification of Alice Anderson.
For more art in London see our top picks for autumn, October, our most talked about September exhibitions and our guide to Frieze week.