night sky

exhibition Abraum
Bauhütte Zollverein / IBA Emscher Park
Zeche Zollverein, Essen, Germany
1994

After climbing the stairs inside the industrial tower you step on the roof top via a hatch in the ceiling.
12 wooden suitcases are placed on the floor. Most of them are open and some are equiped with a coal sphere (camera) and a reel of black iron wire.
The missing coal spheres can be find far over your head – fixed with the thin iron wire into the air. Against the bright daylight the interior spaces of all spheres are totally dark – like black sky deep in the night. Standing directly under one of these black objects you can watch a tiny bright light coming through a very small hole in the center – twinkling like a bright star.

Each of these spheres can be seen as a camera obscura. Through the tiny pin hole you could get quite sharp pictures projected to the open side of the sphere. The smaller the hole is the more stars could be represented on the photo. Coal is the result of a tremendous geological compression. And this is what happens here too: the smaller the hole the larger the univers inside the black head.

material: compressed coal dust from shaft 12, Zeche Zollverein (12 coal spheres Ø 21-24 cm),
black iron wire, wooden suitcase, booklets,
steel mast (4,20m)