In her new exhibition Field of Fragments, South Korean artist Jeewi Lee explores the subject of sand. Sand, often understood as a symbol of infinity and transience, is one of the earth's most essential but increasingly scarce resources.
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Field of Fragments traces the stories and traces of individual grains of sand that Lee has collected in various coastal locations, including the Korean peninsula of Taean-Bando, New York, Connecticut, the Alentejo, Mallorca and Dakar.
The exhibition includes three large-format sculptures that illuminate the grain of sand as a fragment - a tiny object that bears traces of geological time, consumption and migration.
To realize these works, Lee collaborated with geometry researcher Phillip C. Reiner. Together they selected grains of sand from Mallorca's coasts, which were x-rayed and magnified up to 700 times in collaboration with Carl Zeiss Industrielle Messtechnik GmbH.
The scanned structures were then 3D printed with the help of Sandhelden GmbH and further processed by Lee in her studio. This makes the unique and complex formations that often go unnoticed in everyday life visible.
In addition to the sculptures, the exhibition also presents smaller works, including abstract sand paintings that depict the variety of colors and the peculiarities of the various coastal locations in an almost monochrome way. Together, the works form an almost dystopian landscape.
Lee's works invite us to view the grain of sand as a wandering "nomad" that moves from coast to coast, storing memories of geological time periods and human interventions as "embodied memories".
