The three-metre curved wall acts as a performative device in the environment, interacting with humidity and light. On a short timescale, a kinetic light cycle brings the wall to life by casting shifting shadows, while on a longer term, the sculptural wall is physically changing: salt is reacting to the humidity and temperature of the room, subtly crystallising and evolving as a living system. The tiled wall is questioning how can we see our spaces and landscapes as stable yet mutating environments, and ultimately questioning salt, and all materials, as cultural constructs.

Interacting with light and sound, the curved wall creates a reverberating effect in the middle, inviting people to sit down and contemplate its surface. The installation is conceived as a meditative, almost ritualistic space, where visitors can be immersed by the light, sound and simplicity of the white salt wall, answering to the many spiritual properties that have been associated with salt throughout history.

Scenographic elements like the glowing sun bring to the space ideas about natural light cycles and the warm landscape of the desert, where the sun is the only reference of movement and orientation. The soundscape, created by artist Tom Burke, reinterprets the sound of cracking salt crust in the desert into a meditative immersive soundscape. Through a film, samples and 3D printed rocks, visitors can navigate salt from mineral to digital dimensions.

See research process in Re-thinking Mineral Life