Turrell's "Dark Spaces" are immersive environments designed to enhance the viewer's perceptual experience by manipulating light and darkness. One notable example is "Hind Sight," a piece that requires visitors to traverse a dimly lit corridor to enter a space where minimal light allows for a gradual adjustment of the eyes. This setup, lasting about 15 minutes, is intended to heighten the awareness of the subtle presence of light even in seemingly complete darkness, emphasizing Turrell's belief that light is always present, even when not immediately visible​ (MoCA)​​ (Praemium Imperiale)​.

James Turrell's career, deeply rooted in his fascination with light from childhood, reflects a lifelong pursuit of understanding and manipulating light to affect perception. Influenced by his Quaker upbringing, which emphasized the inward search for light as a form of silent meditation, Turrell's work seeks to bridge the inner life of the mind with the outer physical world through the medium of light. His early experiments in the 1960s, such as the Projection Pieces, marked a significant turn in his artistic journey, enabling him to create spaces where light exists as a tangible, sculptural entity. These explorations laid the groundwork for his later works, including the Ganzfeld pieces, which examine the loss of depth perception, and the Skyspaces, which invite viewers to contemplate the changing light of the sky through apertures in enclosed spaces​ (Praemium Imperiale)​.

The culmination of Turrell's exploration of light and space is perhaps best exemplified by his ongoing project, Roden Crater. Located in a dormant volcano in northern Arizona, Roden Crater is an ambitious artwork comprising a series of chambers and tunnels that intensify and isolate celestial light. This project aims to create a profound, personal experience that connects viewers directly to the cosmos, encouraging an active participation in the act of seeing​ (Praemium Imperiale)​.

James Turrell's art, which spans over five decades, continually invites viewers to engage in a deep, contemplative examination of how we perceive light and, by extension, the world around us. Through "Dark Spaces" and his broader body of work, Turrell challenges the boundaries of perception, offering experiences that transcend the visual to touch upon the spiritual and the sublime.