There aren’t many people whose work resonates with us more than renowned Scottish artist Katie Paterson. She broadcasts the sound of melting glaciers, maps dead stars, encapsulates moonlight and sends meteorites back into space. Her meticulous and ambitious projects aim to bring humans face to face with the Earth and the universe, as well as the timescales on which they function. Her collaborations allow us to reflect and understand that not only is life short and history long, but all that is just a blink in geological time.
Probably our favourite work is Future Library. One hundred authors, one a year starting with Margaret Atwood, will be asked to contribute a manuscript to a special sealed archive. After a century, this will be opened and published, with the paper for the books coming from the thousand trees planted by the author in protected forests north of Oslo. It’s a simple idea – a gift for the future – yet it’s one that requires rigorous management and ongoing collaboration. It’s a hundred pieces of different “now” within a time-capsule.
That’s very much in our wheelhouse. Welcome to the party Katie.
“I like work on the brink of impossibility.”
Katie Paterson
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