The Transformative and Hungry Technologies of Copper Mining

Robrecht Declercq and Duncan Money, editors of the recent book Born With a Copper Spoon, explore the past and future relationship between mining technologies and the environment.

The post The Transformative and Hungry Technologies of Copper Mining appeared first on Edge Effects.

Marusela Granell + Manu Bañó Create Beauty With Raw Materials

La verdad de la materia is an exhibition presented in Mexico City during this year’s ZONA MACO, and will be public until March 15th. Marusela Granell and Manu Bañó’s works are linked by the simple yet powerful actions of cutting, folding, gluing, and ripping. The two artists share a deep desire to create beauty through manipulation of raw materials.

While Manu employs industrial materials in a mechanical process to produce sculptural and functional objects without drawing on references, Marusela deconstructs painting by highlighting the elements that make it up. She uses worn-out tubes of oil paint and pieces of paper as both artwork and models.

Manu Bañó’s latest collection delves into the unique qualities and limitations of copper. Crafted in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, Mexico, a town renowned for its centuries-old goldsmithing heritage, the collection showcases the expertise of local artisans, who specialize in crafting small objects such as pots and vessels.

Comprising three distinct pieces – a chair, coffee table, and wall lamp – the collection is the result of a labor-intensive process involving the manual hammering of a thin copper sheet. This technique imbues the metal with both strength and a three-dimensional quality that distinguishes each piece.

Photos by Alejandro Ramírez Orozco.

Nanocrystaline Chairs That Grow Themselves From Copper

Despite looking heavy yet delicate, Max Lamb’s Nanocrystaline Chairs are anything but. In 2006, the London-based artist began thinking about creating a chair using a material that could be melted away once it was encased in copper. This series of four chairs is the result.

Lamb molded each chair, one at a time, in order to use the very same wax for each. The mold was sprayed with a fine suspension of colloidal silver in alcohol, then submerged in a tank holding a solution of 15% copper. What happens next is referred to as the electro-deposition process. While soaking inside the tank, nanocrystals grew and encapsulated the wax in a honeycomb pattern – this is where the material’s strength and flexibility is found. After spending nearly a week in the tank, the chair’s shell was formed.

Once complete, the wax gets melted, drained into a custom heat box, and reused for the next design. While molding the sculptural chairs, Lamb considered their engineering as much as their appearance. The holes in each design help to provide thin, supporting walls of copper between the inner and outer portions. As mentioned, the chairs are both light and strong.

To learn more about the Nanocrystaline Chairs, visit maxlamb.org.

Images courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design. © Max Lamb.