04/11/2025
Impressive art piece by Jeewi Lee & Phillip C. Reiner, exhibited at the Festival of Future Nows 2025, at
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Festival of Future Nows
Institut für Raumexperimente e.V.
Fragment-Proximity_Sa-Ràpita_23-41 investigates a single grain of sand on Mallorca’s Sa Ràpita coast. Created in collaboration with geometry researcher Phillip C. Reiner, it is part of a collection of sand grains from coastal locations all over the world. The grain was imaged by a nano-CT scanner and converted into 3D computer models that served as the basis for the sculpture. Using 3D printing and sand, the grain was enlarged by a factor of roughly one thousand, turning it into a monumental sculpture.
Jeewi Lee makes what normally remains invisible into a tactile landscape of itself. Composed of bits of stone, shell and mineral, sand is used to manufacture concrete, glass and microchips; to filter water; to build cities; and for countless other purposes. Our world is literally built on sand.
Although sand is a metaphor for the infinite, it is also a resource that is disappearing everywhere due to massive mining operations. Global consumption is on the order of fifty billion tonnes a year. At the same time, sand is also a habitat, a reservoir and a symbol of time. Every grain of sand testifies to bygone geological eras and bears traces of past ecosystems and erosional processes, reminding us that even the smallest thing is intimately bound up with daily life as well as global trends including everyday consumerism, capitalism, and resource scarcity.
