Field of Fragments

Sexauer Gallery, Berlin Germany

23 November 2024 – 15 February 2025

Field of Fragments represents the first exhibition showcasing Lee’s efforts to think with and through sand – a material that is rife with paradoxes. Sand is one of the most abundant materials on earth. Yet, after little more than a century of glass and concrete construction, and silicon-based digital technology, it has become a scarce commodity. Indeed, sand mining is driving armed conflict and environmental degradation worldwide, as documented in the 2013 film Sand Wars. Sand is solid, but it often behaves like a liquid (as when it pours) or even as a gas (suspended aloft in sand storms). Sand is a plural noun, occurring in speech, as in the world itself, as an uncountable quantity. The Sorites paradox has puzzled philosophers since the 4th century BCE by asking how many grains must be added or subtracted in order to proceed from a single grain of sand to a heap (soros). Today, this becomes an economic question, as artificial islands and beaches eroded by rising seas are ‘nourished’ with costly transplants of sand from offshore sea beds. Meanwhile, sand dunes encroach over ever larger territories under the pressures of desertification.

Berlin-based Korean multimedia artist Jeewi Lee (born 1987) meditates on the physical traces left by humans on their environments. Her distinctive markings form visual allegories for lived experience, place and memory. This book gathers a selection of her work from the past decade.