title>   Pressions topographiques

medium>  aluminum-factory waste, metallized polyester, traces of asphalt and dirt

date>   2005 series

description>
Pressions topographiques is a series of objects produced in the context of the artist-in-residence program of the Centre de réflexion sur l'image et ses contextes (CRIC) at the École cantonale d'art du Valais in Sierre, in the Swiss Alps.
     The project unites traces of the local industry and topography, both large- and small-scale, and sits in contrast to idealized images of both realms. Off-cut waste lengths of extruded aluminum from the local aluminum factory are fused with direct casts (in metallized polyester) taken from individual cracks in the local pavement. The results are singular objects, each with one facet resembling a sort of mountain range - complete with traces of organic rubble - and the whole sliced and milled like a geological sample.
     The factory, presently operated by Alcan (formerly Alusuisse) and specialized in extruded aluminum products, has historically been the largest employer in a region whose economy is otherwise marked by tourism and artisanal agricultural products such as wine and cheese. The extrusion of aluminum - a process of pressing softened metal through a custom-shaped die - somehow recalls the geographical conditions that originally determined the siting of the factory in the region: that is, the availability of vast amounts of hydroelectric power generated by large dams in the surrounding mountains.
     This presence of water as a generative force shaping the large-scale regional commerce (industrial, agricultural, touristic) is also revealed in the small-scale, lived topography of the area. In this harsh terrain, subterranean water, repeatedly freezing and thawing, expands to cause inevitable cracks in the road surfaces - micro-scaled equivalents of larger tectonic pressures. These negative fissures cast into positive forms are not images but rather actual 1:1 impressions that incompletely survey the imperfect, applied geography of the region. The objects - tactile, handmade casts bonded to prefab aluminum bars - present a sort of schema of interdependence, recalling the pressures that fuse economics, geography, industry, and individual work.