With 700 million USD invested by its founder Victor Pinchuk, the electric steel-melting INTERPIPE STEEL Mill is the first large-scale industrial plant to be built from scratch since Ukraine became independent in 1991. A signature project for Ukrainian society, it unites green state-of-the-art technology with five large-scale permanent masterpieces by Eliasson that are integral to the new factory.
Olafur Eliasson: “Art has the capacity to suggest visions, states of uncertainty, and new stimuli, whereas factories, to ensure smooth production, are of necessity governed primarily by order and predictability. I saw this commission as an invitation to co-develop a generous and welcoming environment; a setting where human values and needs come first, where a degree of unpredictability and aesthetic experience is embraced in the factory’s everyday life and in the city of Dnepropetrovsk”.
Victor Pinchuk: “We have the honor to invite you to an encounter with the future – in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Not a purely digital economy but a real factory. Not robotized labor but a place where humans are essential. Because there is no future without people. Not a soulless facility but a place where art feels at home. Major new works by my friend Olafur Eliasson commissioned as permanent installations – for the workers, the city, and society. I believe there is no future without the inspiration of art”.