In Katie Paterson's (b. 1981, Glasgow/Berlin) Candle (from Earth into a Black Hole), a white candle designed after an analysis of the universe’s molecules is presented. The candle is made up of 23 layers, containing different scents, corresponding to the molecular data from stars, planets, and outer space. It represents 23 perfumes: for example, the smell of geraniums for the stratosphere, sulphuric acid for Venus, and petrol for old stars. Burning down for 12 hours, it navigates the journey starting on Earth through the sky and solar system, out of our universe, all the way to a black hole.
“Beginning like a wave and rippling out quietly”—this is the way that Paterson describes her own artistic practice. Collaborating with scientists, astronomers, and geologists, Paterson investigates the long-term and large-scale cosmic and natural processes. Astoundingly close and distant, the natural environment and its connection to human activity are at the core of her inquiry. Using contemporary technology, such as advanced telescopes, nano-analysis, Internet applications, and radio signals, she developed a unique vision on the processes happening around us, but yet not visible for a human eye.
Paterson is switching the scale of her work from that of the immense space of the cosmos to being unseen by the eye, at the size of the tiniest grain of sand. In one of her projects Campo del Cielo, Field of the Sky, a meteorite has been cast, melted, and then re-cast back into a new version of itself, and a small part of it was sent back to outer space. In another one, Inside this desert lies the tiniest grain of sand, a grain of sand collected from the Sahara Desert was chiseled to 0.00005 mm and buried deep into the vast of sand again. AK
self-presentation:
1. Planting a forest to grow a book. Drinking coffee around a fire in a raining forest and searching for the site.
2. Mixing the scent of deep space with a biochemist in his laboratory.
3. Tending to a one-meter patch of zen garden.
4. Collecting twigs from 4000-year-old trees, in a cloud forest.
5. Listening to glaciers.
6. Carving fossil beads from the first flowers to flower.
7. Beaming silence to the moon in a radio shack in the mountains of Nagano-ken with Noriyuki and Mike.
8. Observing specks of light from the earliest stars in the universe, atop a sacred mountain, and swapping rings containing shards of the moon with my loved one.
