Ungrounding

2023
Exploring Histories of a Landscape in an Art-and-science Installation

Ungrounding tells a story of a particular British landscape and puts past and present into dialogue through design research. Visually, it weaves together data imagery from the University of Oxford’s Department of Materials and visually reimagines artifacts found during archaeological excavations in the area—Saxon copper brooches, axe heads, keys, and horse harnesses. By combining cutting-edge materials research with relics of a bygone age, ‘the lab and the land’ design offers space for connections between art and science. As part of ‘Another Landscape’, it aims to prioritize local materials, knowledge exchange, experimentation, and connecting communities.

  • Ungrounding: a lone pink panel rises from a steel trailer in a meadow, its dusky key and orange ring reimagining relics
  • Ungrounding: a steel frame lies flat in grass, its cream top bearing grey data imagery, a white blob and an orange stripe
  • Ungrounding: three panels stand in a meadow, sculpted orange axe heads and keys beside a grey spear tip and data insets
  • Ungrounding: a giant dimpled orange key fills a cream panel, a lavender lump below, a pink panel with a grey brooch behind
  • Ungrounding: artifacts reimagined up close, a white dimpled lump and an orange bar with spheres on cream, a disc on pink
  • Ungrounding: a pink panel in grass carries an orange ring and grey brooch, up close a dusky key with holes and a yellow rod
  • Ungrounding: five tall panels stand in a meadow on steel trailers, orange keys and axe heads reimagined under a grey sky
  • Ungrounding: under a wide grey sky, five panels rise from trailers in tall grass, sculpted keys and brooches of a bygone age
  • Ungrounding: five panels rise from trailers in a meadow, a dusky key and an orange ring, past and present before green trees
  • Ungrounding: a pink panel up front, its dusky key, orange ring and grey brooch numbered like artifacts, more panels behind
  • Ungrounding: a trailer parks in tall grass, its pink panel numbering orange artifacts, a scoop and dotted data imagery
  • Ungrounding: under a grey sky a trailer raises a pink panel of numbered orange relics, spotted data imagery and a scoop
  • Ungrounding: a trailer stands in a meadow, its pink panel lifting a pierced mauve relic and finds, the lab and the land
  • Ungrounding: straw bales gather in dry grass before a trailer whose steel wall waits to tell a landscape's histories
  • Ungrounding: two trailers of the installation rise in tall grass, orange fabric hung on green boards, the lab and the land