photocollage, C-prints on aluminium composite, epoxy resin,
each 47.5 × 47.5 cm
Crystal Grid is a series of photocollages influenced by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s assertion that the global capitalism we know today was already finalized with the opening of the Crystal Palace in 1851 on the occasion of the Great Exhibition (later to become the World Fair/Expo). A variation of a grid that is based on the structure of the Crystal Palace’s central transept is laid upon photographs that are shot in various botanical gardens around the world. This refers to Crystal Palace’s architect Sir Joseph Paxton and his background as a gardener and designer of botanical gardens. The analogue printing process of the photographs both emphasizes as well as obscures photography’s indexical relationship to the place where light first fell onto the negative as fragments of images shot in Brooklyn, Glasgow, Frankfurt etc are placed next to each other on the flat plane of each piece. The images simultaneously describe both the infinite global network as well as the placelessness of such a world. The work is presented in sets of three images that all contain fragments from each other that have been scrambled by the grid.
