2014

The work orig­i­nal­ly formed part of a com­mis­sion from the V&A Muse­um, Lon­don for their exhi­bi­tion ​‘Mem­o­ry Palace’; based on a specif­i­cal­ly writ­ten text by the author Hari Kun­zru – mul­ti­ple artists, illus­tra­tors and design­ers each worked on visu­al­iz­ing a sec­tion of his writing. 

The plates are acid etched let­ter­press plates made from zinc. The images are made up from thou­sands of typo­graph­ic sym­bols tak­en from the peri­od­ic table. Tak­ing its visu­al cues from reli­gious arte­facts such as Yantras and Thangkas — the project re-appro­pri­ates this sacred geom­e­try to present mod­ern day data sets in its place. Each pan­el con­tains, rough­ly, the pro­por­tion­ate amounts of chem­i­cal sym­bols found in three icon­ic objects — a sim card, a watch and a book — which, the artist is sug­gest­ing, are our more mod­ern arti­facts of worship.

Con­tin­u­ing on from the V&A Mem­o­ry Palace exhi­bi­tion a set of Kore­an Jok­ja Mod­ern Gods Scrolls & Books scrolls were pro­duced as an exten­sion of the project. These were accom­pa­nied by an artist book that charts the pro­duc­tion of the work.

Images 2&3 : Instal­la­tion image of Sky Arts Igni­tion: Mem­o­ry Palace at the V&A © Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um, London