This project exposes the shifts in scale and national ideologies that are anchored and embedded in the historical self-image presented in individual atlases.

The atlas/map of the world is an object capable of exerting great fascination, and one with which many people have a special relationship. I myself have a collection numbering more than five hundred historical atlases from various countries. All very different, they demonstrate how individual countries view themselves in relation to the rest of the world. In the project Atlas Working on Damage Control I seek to expose such national self-images by forcing the flat, two-dimensional map format to return to the concept of Earth as a single, round globe. The process exposes the shifts in scale and national ideologies anchored and embedded in the historical self-image presented in individual atlases.

Medium: Reference work from 1953 (Gyldendals opslagsleksikon), insulating foam, wood glue.