This site-specific sculpture, The Chain Reaction, is situated on the contours of an absent pillar at the St. Nikolai Memorial, one of many traces left by the successive catastrophes that have shaped this site. The work connects to Alfred Nobel's presence in Germany and to his laboratory in Geesthacht, near Hamburg, where the invention and distribution of dynamite took place from 1867. The same area later associated with energy production when, after the Second World War, hosted a nuclear power plant now decommissioned.

The Chain Reaction traces and resurrects the pillars by using the same ingredients that Nobel employed in his factory: Glycerin, the multiple-purpose elixir and Kieselguhr – the fossilized remains of microscopic algae found in the Elbe region. Within the pillar, a landscape carved from Kieselguhr reveals a compressed timeline, the successive architectures of industry that have occupied this site, from Nobel's dynamite factory to the nuclear plant and beyond. Symbolically, it brings forth the duality of materials that can both create and reshape our world. The piece asks how can we reconcile growing energy demands with the necessity of degrowth when “the planet is a new proletariat” as Eva von Redecker has it? Nobel came to be remembered not only as a “merchant of death” but also as the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. What daily steps are we to make to redirect the energy extraction to the collective energies for life? 

PROGRESSION / RECESSION

From its installation, the ingredients used have continued to change the sculpture. Sustained ultraviolet light has bleached the natural dye used in the glycerin; the blue has now receded to white and translucent layers, it is now only a phantom. Rain and fluctuating temperatures have since softened the glycerin which has begun to melt down the steps, along the lines of the stones. This dissolution was always a potential in the material — the same shift in purpose and use that runs through its history, from weapon to remedy, from factory to memorial.

DESCENT / WITHDRAWAL

As the condition of the sculpture continued to be negotiated, the glycerin form was moved below, into the former wine cellar, while the kieselguhr landscape remained in the window. Before the move, children had begun to play with the soap, washing their hands in it after the rain, a concern to some but a welcomed gesture for the artist. Disintegration continued, and with it, concern for the memorial itself, a site already defined by destruction, now facing different traces of ‘damage’. What is allowed to be preserved or maintained in a site like this & what kind of aging is permitted? Something between the ship of Theseus and a vitrine. In the cellar, high humidity and low temperatures caused the sculpture to sweat, drawing moisture onto the glycerin and the floor beneath it, raising the possibility of mould. After further negotiation, it was agreed that the glycerin form would be removed from the exhibition entirely, to prevent any further damage to the site;, this place has already endured enough.

INTERCEPTION / CIRCULATION

When it was finally agreed that the glycerin sculpture should be removed from its initial location, as it had been deemed a hazard to the site, artist Arjun Panayal, working under his fictional company കുവെകുവ (Kuvekuva), stepped in. Kuvekuva is a company that acts as a cultural emergency response unit, dedicated to providing artistic support.

The company recovered as much of the discarded material as they could from the 62 kilograms, melting and reforming the glycerin into 580 bars of hand soap. Rematerialized, these hand-cut, pressed, and packaged remnants are distributed as gifts to visitors of the exhibition — no longer a sculpture but a consumable , meant to be used, to lather, to cleanse, to disappear down drains, flowing from sinks across the city. We invite you to take a bar and continue The Chain Reaction, allowing what was withdrawn from the site to enter back into circulation. As with the invention of dynamite, and the journey of this artwork thus far, what follows this gesture is beyond anyone's foresight or control.


Mark Morris, born 1992 in Teluk Intan, lives and works in Hamburg.


Presented with the support of the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung.

Archival Access & historical context provided by Ulrike Neidhöfer, Förderkreis Industriemuseum Geesthacht e.V 

Technical and Precision Wizard, Michael Dachselt

3 dimensional, Conceptual & Moral support by 
Arjun Panayal
Mor Afgin
Natalya Stupka
Peter Lampe 
Swaantje Benson 
Tewprai Bualoi