Treasure of the Faroes: my amazing underwater drive through a Viking-tinged artwork

A tunnel has opened up more than 150m below the Atlantic, boasting a six-mile-long art installation complete with its own spectral soundtrack picked up by car radio. Our writer has the ride of his life

‘This is bigger than going from A to B,” says Edward Fuglø. “This is a route into another world.” Fuglø is a Faroe Islands artist who has created the paintings decorating the arching interior of a new tunnel snaking beneath the north Atlantic. Glowing, stylised human figures, many wearing Viking helmets and carrying spears, loom with a 3D intensity from the steely grey walls around me. The figures are accompanied by longships, mythic enchanted horses, cattle, birds and depictions of ancient stone ruins.

Using the latest Japanese projector technology, the 10 images – each several metres high and produced from Fuglø’s originals – are as bright as neon, and represent fantastical creatures and characters from Faroese legend. “Inside the tunnel we are dry,” Fuglø muses, “but we have the sense of the weight of the ocean above us. And we are crossing between very different islands; places with their own distinct identities, even in a place as small as the Faroes.”