Finissage: Crystalline Memories of Deep Time
Artist Claus Spangsberg creates fascinating images at the intersection of art and science. Meet him in the exhibition on its very last day.
Claus Spangsberg specializes in microscopy and crystallization, creating images using chemical substances, DNA, and amino acids. In the exhibition Crystalline Memories of Deep Time, he explores some of the oldest materials known to us and presents various meteorites and components from the biochemical processes of the primordial soup. Materials such as crystallized sulfur, amino acids, and enzymes are presented as large-scale microscopic images or displayed in specially constructed screens with polarizing filters, allowing beautiful colors and patterns to emerge from the materials’ structures.
Meet Claus on the final day of the exhibition, when you will have the opportunity to ask questions about the works, be guided through the exhibition, and hear more about his artistic process.
The exhibition is supported by
Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond
Den Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Stiftelse
Knud Højgaards Fond
Poul Johansen Fonden
Lizzi og Mogens Staal Fonden
OVODAN BIOTECH
Københavns Kommune – Rådet for Visuel Kunst
Ole Rømer and the Great Discovery
In 2026, the Round Tower marks the 350th anniversary of Ole Rømer’s groundbreaking discovery of the speed of light with an extensive programme. From February and throughout the year, visitors can experience the tower’s historical introductory exhibition, which tells the story of the discovery, the person behind it, and Rømer’s connection to the Round Tower.
350 years ago, the astronomer Ole Rømer made his pivotal discovery that light has a finite speed. But how did he arrive at this conclusion? What does the discovery mean for us today? And who was he beyond this achievement—the man with many talents and a large wig?
Alongside four rotating special exhibitions on light presented over the course of the year, you can experience the Round Tower’s own exhibition on Ole Rømer and gain deeper insight into the man, the discovery, and his relationship to the Round Tower.
Tower Talk: Ad Lucem
Explore the art-science photo exhibition “Ad Lucem” together with its two creators, artist Cecilia Ömalm and astronomy professor Göran Östlin.
How does light from distant galaxies connect us across time and space? Immerse yourself in mesmerizing, deep-blue works created with cyanotype – a unique process where iron salts mixed into UV-sensitive solutions, combined with sunlight, form images in those unmistakable blue tones.
Ömalm and Östlin recreate the Universe’s light and astronomical imagery using both historic glass-plate negatives and modern digital sensors. Each piece is printed by hand, and when the Sun develops these celestial images, it becomes a poetic act: the works are reborn by the very light from the sky toward which the telescopes once pointed.
“Ad Lucem” is the duo’s largest solo exhibition to date, featuring 40 works including a new piece inspired by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer’s measurements of the speed of light – presented in a spatial design reflecting the tower’s architecture and evoking the feeling of stepping into an observatory.
Cecilia Ömalm and Göran Östlin will guide visitors through the exhibition and share insights into their cyanotype practice. For those eager to experience the craft firsthand, the artists will host a cyanotype workshop on 7 February, open to both children and adults.
Before and after the tour, guests are welcome to enjoy the exhibition at their own pace and purchase refreshments from the bar in the Library Hall. Admission to the Round Tower is included in the ticket.
Please note: The talk will be held in English.
The event is part of the program for Light Year 2026 – a year-long celebration of light and the 350th anniversary of Ole Rømer’s groundbreaking discovery of the speed of light.
Light Echoes
Communicating scientific discovery across scales of time and space remains a fundamental challenge. Light Echoes is an exhibition and a research project proposing art as a vital medium through which complex astrophysical research can be observed, experienced and understood.
Bringing together artists, curators, and astrophysicists, the exhibition explores how the connection of light and time shapes our understanding of cosmic phenomena—from the expansion of the Universe and the observation of distant galaxies to stellar explosions and gravitational lensing. Through four installations and a surrounding soundscape, scientific knowledge unfolds as an experiential field and an immersive experience rather than a fixed imagery.
The exhibition’s title refers to the astronomical phenomenon of the light echo: light emitted by a stellar explosion, scattered into space, and later reflected by interstellar dust, reaching Earth again at a different time and from another direction. Appearing as a delayed mirror of the past, the light echo allows scientists to observe cosmic events more than once, across centuries. Within the exhibition, this phenomenon becomes both a scientific framework and a poetic metaphor—suggesting how knowledge itself returns, refracted through time, transformed by new methods, and reactivated through collaboration.
Developed by the newly established Yonder Art•Science at the Niels Bohr Institute, Light Echoes unfolds as a constellation of interdisciplinary voices. Participating artists include Jo Verwohlt & Pieter Maria Steyaert (DK/BE), Ligia Bouton (USA), Lea Porsager (DK), and Semiconductor (UK), working in dialogue with astrophysicists from DARK—the cosmology research unit at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen—including Jo Verwohlt, Jens Hjorth, Clara Ferreira Cores, Christa Gall, Marianne Vestergaard, and Radosław Jan Wojtak, among others.
Conceived as a living research environment rather than a static display, the exhibition invites audiences to explore light and time as scientific tools for investigating how we perceive the Universe, suggesting that understanding how the cosmos functions can also help us reflect on humanity’s place within it—not as distant observers, but as participants in a dynamic system of shared inquiry.
Curated by Irene Campolmi, Head of Yonder Art•Science Niels Bohr Institute.
The exhibition is supported by Ny Carlsbergfondet.
Refractions of Ice
In “Refractions of Ice”, art and science meet in a visual exploration of the deep ice.
Under polarized light, the crystals of the ice emerge in surprising patterns, where the ice’s own poetic language—of colors, shapes, and movements—reveals traces of past climates and hints at transformations yet to come.
The exhibition presents macro-optical film recordings of ice crystals from millennia-old ice cores, extracted from three kilometers deep within the Greenland ice sheet. Through a scientific and visual study of the ice crystals’ microscopic movements and melting processes, the work invites the viewer into the deep narratives of the ice, where vibrant crystals become images of the planet’s mutability.
Video and sound translate ice-core research into a sensory experience, where the encounter between science and aesthetics creates a visual space for reflection on nature’s transformations and humanity’s place within them—in a time of climatic and existential shifts.
The work was created by Visual Science Studio in collaboration with researchers from the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.
The exhibition is supported by:
Knud Højgaards Fond
William Demant Fonden
Louis-Hansen Fonden
AFTERGLOW. Conversations on Light
What connects art and astrophysics? Meet eight artists who, in dialogue with astrophysicists, explore the phenomenon of light.
Both art and astronomy share a fascination with the speculative and the mysterious — and with the sense that behind the fog lies a clarity that reveals itself in fleeting glimpses. Science tests and confirms hypotheses, while art examines the world through sensory experiences that evoke reflection. Together, they can help us see the world in a new light and create new narratives about reality.
The exhibition invites you into a space where art gives form to astrophysical phenomena. Here you can experience works that are both visually captivating and thought-provoking — a meeting between scientific facts and aesthetic explorations of light, time, and cosmic spirituality.
Participating artists: Kirstine Roepstorff, Nicolai Howalt, Pernille With Madsen, Matilde Duus, Laila Svensgaard, Thorbjørn Lausten, Biba Fibiger and Veronica Rigét in dialogue with astrophysicists from The Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, Anja C. Andersen, Peter Laursen, Birgitta Nordström and Helge Stjernholm Kragh.
The exhibition is created by the curatorial collective Perelin, Nattens Skov, founded by Veronica Rigét and Biba Fibiger.
Ad Lucem
“Lightyear 2026” opens with “Ad Lucem” (To the Light) – an artistic and scientific collaboration between artist Cecilia Ömalm and professor of astronomy Göran Östlin – a project that beautifully unites art and science in an exploration of how light from distant galaxies connects us across time and space.
Experience captivating, deep-blue photographic works created with cyanotype – a unique technique invented by astronomer John Herschel, where iron salts mixed to result in UV-sensitive solutions, and sunlight combine to form images in characteristic shades of blue.
Ömalm and Östlin recreate the light of the Universe using both historical glass plate negatives and modern digital image sensors. Each work is hand-printed, and when sunlight develops these celestial images, it becomes a poetic act – a rebirth of light from the same sky the telescopes once pointed toward.
“Ad Lucem” at the Round Tower marks the duo’s largest solo exhibition to date, featuring 40 works – including a new piece inspired by Ole Rømer’s groundbreaking measurements of the speed of light – presented in a design that mirrors the tower’s shape and evokes the atmosphere of an observatory.
Thank you to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Observatoire de Paris for allowing the use of their old photographic negatives.
Cecilia Ömalm (b. 1974) is a Stockholm-based visual artist educated at the International Center of Photography in New York. She has been working with cyanotypes for the past 10 years and has developed a method for printing modern glass negatives that she uses to create larger works. In addition to the cyanotypic method, she prints on fabric, enamel, aluminum, and concrete, and uses light and sculpture in exhibitions and public spaces. Her art is linked to spatiality, architecture, and time and is often presented in large-scale installations. Ömalm is represented in institutions such as the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Swedish National Public Art Council, Stockholm Konst, Västerås Konstmuseum, as well as in private Swedish and international collections.
Göran Östlin (b. 1968) is a professor of astronomy at Stockholm University, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the chairman of its class for astronomy and space science. His research focuses on the origin and development of galaxies, and he uses observations from some of the most powerful observatories on Earth and in space, including the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope. He is the Swedish leader of the international consortium that built the MIRI camera for the new James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched on Christmas Day in 2021.
Follow the duo here:
www.omalmostlin.com
instagram.com/omalmostlin
The Shadow Archive
In the exhibition, the Round Tower’s Library Hall is staged as nine individual narratives, inviting visitors to create their own stories about the forgotten, the unforeseen, and the shadowless.
With political, astrophysical and universal issues as an artistic starting point, the exhibition seeks to shed light on what is yet to be told—and thus, yet to be archived.
The exhibition is curated by Marie Bancks, Stine Ljungdalh and Tomas Lagermand Lundme.
Participating artists: Al Masson, Barbara Amalie Skovmand Thomsen, Honey Biba Beckerlee, Marie Bancks, Pulsk Ravn, Stine Ljungdalh, Sonja Strange and Tomas Lagermand Lundme.
The exhibition is supported by:
Statens Kunstfond
Al Masson
Clipping Obsession
Barbara Amalie Skovmand Thomsen
The Music of the Spheres
Engineer and artist George Koutsouris is the project’s technical consultant.
The work has been supported by the Danish Composers’ Society, the Danish Arts Foundation, Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, the Danish Visual Arts Council, Art Hub Copenhagen and the Danish Art Workshops.
Honey Biba Beckerlee
Matters of Time
Marie Bancks
Grain
Pulsk Ravn
The Shadow Work
Stine Ljungdalh
Sofie – The Collective Navigator
Sonja Strange
Panspermia – from Moon Europa with Love
Tomas Lagermand Lundme
Killing the darkness with words
Crystalline Memories of Deep Time
What are the oldest materials we know of? With a palette of crystallized sulfur, enzymes, and meteorites, the exhibition explores the time before Earth’s formation and traces the earliest signs of life.
The journey begins before the solar system formed, when stardust from dying stars clumped together, later falling to Earth as meteorites. Crystalline Memories of Deep Time examines various meteorites and components from the primordial soup’s biochemical processes. Materials like sulfur, enzymes, and amino acids are transformed into images and presented on custom-built screens. The exhibition also delves into LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor)—the concept of a single-celled organism as the last common ancestor—through 3-billion-year-old fossilized structures that testify to the earliest stages of life and the interconnectedness of all living things through deep time.
Claus Spangsberg creates captivating works at the intersection of art and science. In recent years, he has specialized in microscopy and crystallization, producing images with chemical substances, DNA, and amino acids.
The exhibition is supported by
Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond
Den Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Stiftelse
Knud Højgaards Fond
Poul Johansen Fonden
Lizzi og Mogens Staal Fonden
OVODAN BIOTECH
Københavns Kommune – Rådet for Visuel Kunst
TIME*SOIL*STAR
Eight contemporary artists explore the climate crisis through everything from objects found in areas of Copenhagen, subterranean creatures and floral metaphors to a café in outer space, invasions from distant galaxies.
We belong to the world. The world does not belong to us. This is the starting point for the exhibition TIME*SOIL*STAR, which revolves around humanity’s impact on the planet.
The exhibition stems from what is currently shaking the ground beneath our feet – the global climate crisis and the future we are facing. The artists aim to contribute to a new perception of the world, based on an equality between and respect for all living things on the planet.
The relationship between humans and the planet is the common thread in TIME*SOIL*STAR, but the works range widely – from paintings and sculptures to installations and video, from dystopian sci-fi to botany and contemporary archaeology.
You enter the exhibition by quite literally stepping on delicate drawings of endangered insects. Later, you encounter earth beings from the underground and experience how the past shapes the near future through objects found at Amager Fælled in Copenhagen. You can explore the colonial history of botany and study the metaphors of flowers. From the familiar, the exhibition expands into wild narratives, including an invasion from distant galaxies and future memories from a café in outer space.
The exhibition takes you on a dizzying journey through both biological and historical time, connecting to the Round Tower’s long history as an astronomical observatory and a window to the mysteries of the universe.
Participating artists: Jeanette Land Schou, Nina Maria Kleivan, Karen Gabel Madsen, Bodil Brems, Henriette C. Hansen, Vicky Steptoe, Pernelle Maegaard og Nanna Gro Henningsen.
The exhibition is supported by
Statens Kunstfond
Rådet for Visuel Kunst, Københavns Kommune
Knud Højgaards Fond