Scales and Strata

Hof, Germany

October 21 - November 11, 2024

 

Presented in the exhibition 'ANTHROPOZÄNTA 2024', together with artists Kriz Olbricht, Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett, organized by ANTHROPOZÄNTA.

Materials: Expanded metal from the signal fence of the former GDR border zone, new expanded metal, slate.

The installation ’Scales and Strata’ reflects on the different layers of time brought into collision in the landscape around the former GDR border zone (the 'Iron Curtain') – previously a no-man's land, presently a nature reserve, lined on both sides with centuries-old stone quarries. Deep, geological time; violent historical time; and the more-than-human life cycles of rare and vulnerable species in the so called Green Belt.

As a companion piece I also exhibited 'Fault lines' – a series of photographs taken in the old quarries around Hof, mounted double-sided on board, and incised with patterns based on:
a) a row of shot holes for dynamite in one of the quarries,
b) the grid of holes in the concrete slabs of the kolonnenweg (a part of the GDR ‘death strip’ fortifications),
c) a section of the state border close to Hof, taken from a map.

Furthermore, I included a third piece – 'The surface of the world' – as a series of postcards, but here presented as a continuous text work.

"When viewed in deep time, things come alive that seemed inert. New responsibilities declare themselves. A conviviality of being leaps to mind and eye. The world becomes eerily various and vibrant again. Ice breathes. Rock has tides. Mountains ebb and flow. Stone pulses. We live on a restless Earth."

Robert Macfarlane, Underland