Monday, September 27, 2010

Toxic tailings


More stitching... this was inspired by an aerial photograph of the tailings lake of a open cast copper mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The byproducts of such mining operations are sludges of poisonous chemicals so nasty they won't even blend together but instead sit on top of each other in pretty patterns.


This will be part of a larger, more complicated, work concerned with mining. I'm a bit ambivalent about the mining project so I'm also making a lot of lovely icebergs simultaneously, to balance things out.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Meliors, this is amazing (like all your work). Thinking of mining, you may like to visit this - http://www.peterevansphotography.co.nz/gallery/coalseams.html - for some reason this made me think of your work (I think this shot is incredible, so hope you find it a compliment!)

Carol said...

Such beautiful patterns, Meliors, if you hadn't said what this is I'd have thought it was a very lovely abstract design. Instead this is a pretty sinister subject. Don't feel too ambivalent about the mining project, you really have something to say here. I also looked at the thought provoking Peter Evans photographs, thanks KitchenMaid.

BirdSpoke said...

wow I love it!