Sediment Atlas

Sediment Atlas is a collaboration with geologists from the Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, undertaken over eighteen months of fieldwork in the Danube floodplain between Tulln and the Slovak border. Bore samples taken at regular intervals were subjected to X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, producing mineral composition profiles for depths ranging from surface topsoil to Pleistocene-era gravel layers.

Each tile represents a single bore location. The glaze formulations are derived directly from the spectrometry results: iron oxide content governs the red-brown spectrum, magnesium silicate compounds produce the grey-blue strata, and the presence of organic matter introduces unpredictable dark halos that resist systematic control. The work deliberately exploits the instability of ceramic firing — each tile is unique, as no glaze behaves identically at kiln temperature, just as no two bore samples share an identical mineral profile.

Exhibited at the Kunsthalle Wien as part of the group show Material Witness (October–December 2023), the tiles were arranged in geographical order, forming a 12-by-4 metre map of the floodplain. An accompanying publication, with essays by geologists Brigitte Humer and Peter Sedlak, documents the data-to-glaze translation process and is available through the Kunsthalle bookshop.