The lights in the Upper Gallery of Modern Art Oxford have been dimmed and all the windows covered so that it takes a moment for the eyes to adjust as you scan the room for the artwork. Then you see it in the far left hand corner — the Time Capsule.

As its title suggests it is indeed a capsule. Indeed it is an exact replica of the Fenix 2 capsule used to raise the 33 trapped Chilean miners to safety. It is the work of Slovakian artist Roman Ondak and is seen in his first major solo exhibition in the UK.

One of the intriguing things about this piece is the fact that Roman has given the capsule that weathered look a piece of equipment would have acquired after making 33 trips 700 metres below the earth. Indeed, it looks exactly like the real thing.

Stand close to the capsule and look up to the ceiling and you will spot a small circle of blue in the escape shaft that those trapped underground would have called the sky. Being the only spot of light in the whole room, it is particularly evocative of the miners’ plight.

Now you are required to walk into darkness with nothing to guide you, just as those miners would have done. Nothing can be seen until the screen in the second gallery comes into view. Entitled Stampede, this is Roman Ondak’s second installation, which touches on the other extreme when people experience an overcrowded situation. Filmed in the very gallery in which it is shown, this ten-minute film shows a large crowd of people walking into and out of the space. At times the space becomes so crowded all you can see is one massive moving shape. It is up to the visitor to make a link between the two pieces.

In the gallery’s Yard, on the ground floor, Michael Sailstorfer’s Clouds, created from large inflated black industrial tyre inner tubes hangs from the ceiling, twisted and bunched to give the illusion of dark clouds, amusing shapes or clusters of black rubber forms.