La dérive des pôles
Vanessa Gandar
Occurrences such as solar winds and asteroid showers regularly disrupt the protective efficacy of the Earth’s magnetic field, and affect technological systems, the climate and the movements of migratory animals. La dérive des pôles is a project that explores the role of the Earth’s magnetic field in changes to the landscape. For this art project, Vanessa Gandar relies on navigational data gathered by sailors in 1650, the work of the naturalist and scientist Alexander von Humboldt, and other more recent discoveries.
She also visited meteor craters around the world in order to find traces that might reveal the effects of these magnetic phenomena. Each of these undertakings gave rise to new sets of results: an atlas of multiple forms of documentation, photographic works and graphic experiments that render in technical, visual, perceptible form the traces of these phenomena at the levels of geology, culture and society. Her installation, created especially for the festival, examines the connections between human beings and the natural world, the Earth and the cosmos.
With the support of: DRAC Grand Est / Région Grand Est
Year of production: 2018-2023
