Navigation Instrument (North)
2012
Works
Navigation Instrument (North), 2012
Crowbar, salt, tree root
120 cm h, 95 cm dia
This compass of sorts delineates a transit territory before allowing visitors to proceed, in this case northward, as the tip of the metal bar indicates. The crowbar marks out the space by drawing a circle filled with salt. The tip works like a needle aligned with the earth’s magnetic field. Unearthed from its native soil, an upended tree root creates a landscape at the compass’s centre. From North to South, from mountain to sea, salt retains the memory of the water from which it comes. And from earliest antiquity, it has been commercially traded along the world’s great communication routes.