Things that Get in Our Way | 2026
Things that Get in Our Way (2015–2026)
Media installation
Objects: Aluminum, Geiger counter, micro processor, LEDs, tripod, wooden crate, jacket (2016)
Video: Things that Get in Our Way – Mk1 (2025)
Dimensions variable
Installation shot, Common Grounds, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA), 2026
The artwork probes how our understanding of radiation—and environmental threats more broadly— remains shaped by mythic narratives and a persistent reliance on symbolic interpretations. The artist’s performative, and at times deliberately “futile,” engagement with the device becomes a meditation on the limits of perception and the challenges of making the invisible visible. Rather than offering clear answers, Things that Get in Our Way – Mk1 invites viewers to confront their own interpretive frameworks and reflect on the often inaccessible forces that shape the environments we inhabit.
The centrepiece of the work is an experimental device: a polished metal sphere housing a Geiger counter. As it detects ambient gamma radiation, it translates the invisible into a series of frantic flashes and clicks. This instrument serves as a bridge between the physical reality of the landscape and the "mythic interventions" we use to explain things beyond our immediate perception.
The latest video iteration, Things That Get in Our Way – Mk1 (2025), focuses on Oviken, Sweden—a region currently facing the prospect of open-pit uranium mining following a major shift in national environmental policy. Through a "pig-headed" and solitary performative practice against vast, uranium-rich landscapes, the work challenges the viewer to confront the limits of their own perception and the fragile frameworks we use to interpret a changing world.
