With the Past on the Left and the Future on the Right, 2023
Limpet shells, stainless steel | Dimensions variable (1695cm length)
The shells are manufactured from calcium ions and carbon dioxide in the oceans. When the aquatic snails die, their shells break down (initially into sand) and settle on the seafloor where, over millions of years, they compress into deposits of biogenic rock – limestone. The favour is returned when calcium carbonate solutions provide living organisms with the materials to grow their own protective shells, and so the cycle continues.
Limpet shells threaded through the aperture that forms at their peak as the shells erode, and hung from the rocks that once sustained them.
Calcium carbonate constitutes about 5% of the Earth’s crust.