Miniscopics#4
Objects in different sizes, wood
36 x 22 x 1500 cm, 2011
Installation view: Akiyoshidai International Art Village (AIAV). Yamaguchi, Japan


“Miniscopics” are very small fragments of everyday objects, manipulated until it becomes difficult to recognise where they come from, but still preserving some evidence about their primal function or other details of the original object. From those fragments, and through a laboratory-like process of collection, modification, classification, and combination, new very small sculptures arise. Then, creating a game of dialogues, cross-references, and narrative threads, these small entities are set in bigger installations in the final work.

The made up term “miniscopic”, as opposed to “microscopic”, refers to an object that is not invisible to the human eye, but on the edge of visibility. This has not necessarily to do with the size of it, but with a precise manipulation. To put it more simply, as soon as it becomes impossible to recognise an object we start to see it as a sculptural form, and “miniscopics” is about creating objects that are exactly on these boundaries between form and function. The original use –or a range of possible uses of the object– always accompanies “miniscopics”, but may not be evident at first sight, if at all. So the viewer has to reconstruct this information about the object’s nature, an earlier function… and add a personal interpretation.