Midden

Somerset House, London

March 1 – 3, 2024

MIDDEN – Karen Browning and Jon Lewis

From prehistoric times our domestic waste dumps (middens), were filled with predominantly organic materials which decomposed, only liths, ceramics, basic metals and glass remain today. Following the invention of plastics, heavy metals and chemicals, Earth will now be left with indelible traces in the sedimentary rock strata for millions of years into the future.

Core drilling began as a method of sampling rock for ore deposits, mining and oil exploration. Core samples indicate variations of climate, atmospheric conditions, sedimentary composition and species of life during geologic history.

Today’s culture sees useful appliances and products being discarded prematurely. Planned obsolescence is the deliberate shortening of a product’s usage life by manufacturers to encourage consumers to buy new products, psychological obsolescence occurs because consumers want to upgrade to a newer and better product.

Mostly everything manufactured today is sourced from materials mined from the earth. In 2019 alone we mined more metals than the entire amount mined historically yearly before 1955 combined. The materials required to build new technologies for greener energy solutions such as wind farms, solar panels and electric cars will ultimately have to be mined from the earth too.

We dismantled a discarded CRT television into its base materials. We then melted, cast, forged, pressed, ground, polished and machined these materials and piece them back together to emulate a mining core sample. The materials have varying volumes and striking differences in colour and appearance. The finished solid cylinders are predominantly glass with all the other elements bonded together to reference sedimentary layers in their appearance.