Objects

Ocean Articulated

Ocean Articulated began as a study of the long-term material cycles embedded in the landscape of Northern Switzerland—specifically the High Rhine region, where gravel, sand, and deep layers of salt coexist as remnants of vastly different temporal events. The salt, formed between 60 and 250 million years ago through the evaporation of a prehistoric sea, now lies beneath sediments left behind by glacial erosion some 25,000 years ago. This layered geography tells a story not just of geological processes, but of time experienced on a scale that far exceeds human perception. It reminds us that what we often treat as “raw materials” are in fact slow accumulations shaped over spans of time that render human history momentary and contingent.

The project emerged from a desire to relate to these materials not only as resources, but as agents shaped by deep time and now entangled in the pressures of contemporary extraction. Sand, for instance, is globally overexploited—used primarily in construction, where it becomes locked in concrete and rendered unrecoverable. Even though Switzerland has an abundance of sand due to Alpine erosion, its availability on a global scale is diminishing, with enormous ecological and logistical costs. Ocean Articulated asked whether it was possible to use sand not as an expendable input, but as a cyclical, reusable material—one whose properties could be highlighted, rather than erased, in its transformation.

Type: Material and process research
Material: Sand, salt and plant-based binder
Process: Oven drying

High Rhine - CH

Thanks to Schweizer Saline and KIBAG for the material support.

Photos by Studio Eidola.

A film by Sebastian Vargas, profiler.world

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