A Study of Heap Behaviour

This print is an extension of my ongoing research about friction and heaps. In summer 2023, I led a workshop in Copenhagen with my interdisciplinary group Experimenting, Experiencing, Reflecting (EER). We focused on making and observing heaps of different materials – in this case, sand, lichen, mulch, gravel, soil, and rice. After the experiment, I measured each heap with a make-shift angle-finder to record its ‘angle of repose’, the steepest angle at which a heap can remain stable and retain its heapness. The experiment was based on my 2023 artwork-essay Cosa Bella Mortal: A Work of Friction, which described a heap as ‘many unbounded things temporarily existing as one while also existing in the possibility of dispersal’. 

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For this print, I cut all the copper plates to correspond with each angle repose I measured that day during the workshop. I then used a soft-ground etching technique to capture impressions of the respective materials directly in the copper.