Typically, we consider art and science as contradictory; art being creative, abstract, and beautiful, whereas science is rational, precise, and practical. However, in a rapidly developing world the lines are starting to blur. The relationship between humans, nature and technology is constantly shifting as the three become increasingly interconnected. To even begin to understand this complex relationship, we need to open our minds and look beyond what we already know.

That relationship is what Oscar Santillán aims to capture with his solo exhibition A HEAVY HALO, housed in the RADIUS Centre for Contemporary Art and Ecology. The exhibition is composed of eleven artworks that explore the interaction between humans and materials, as well as technology and nature in an ecological context.

One of these works is 1’111,111, which displays the decay of an everyday object; a shoe, over exponentially increasing time. This starts from one year all the way to one million years of degradation. The concept is certainly ingenious, but how does one make a shoe look one million years old?

This is where Spark904 comes in! We embarked on this project with Studio ANTIMUNDO to help with the production of artwork 1’111,111. Our expertise in waste valorization made us familiar with the degradation of materials, which we leveraged to design chemical treatments for the shoes. We worked behind the scenes using different compounds in order to make the shoes appear as if they have been decaying over the years. The challenge was to make sure that the results were convincing, and in the end we landed on a regimen of different acids, bases and solvents. We focused on producing different effects on the shoes, with a variety of textures, degradation and colors. Our heaviest degradation was achieved with strong oxidizing agents, which corroded most of the shoe away almost immediately!

If you are interested in seeing the artwork up close, as well as appreciate the rest of the wonderful exhibition by Oscar Santillán, make sure to visit A HEAVY HALO in the RADIUS Centre for Contemporary Art and Ecology by the 20^th of August 2023!