Olafur Eliasson, born 1967 in Copenhagen, studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research in which he works with a team of architects, art historians, and material and light specialists. There he develops and produces artworks such as installations and photographs of an experimental nature.

Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The weather project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London. Exhibition venues include Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, a large survey organised by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, travelled to The Museum of Modern Art in New York and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in April 2008. The exhibition opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in May 2009.

Eliasson has engaged in a number of projects in public space, including his intervention Green river, 1998, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001. With the Norwegian architect Kjetil Thorsen he designed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, a temporary pavilion situated in Kensington Gardens, London. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, his The New York City Waterfalls were installed on Manhattan and Brooklyn shorelines from July to October 2008.