Mapping the Invisible

Artist and researcher Oliver Thie explores microscopic creatures with wall-sized drawings. His extreme enlargements open up an unseen microcosm. Thie‘s graphic landscapes give insight on the surface of the Hawaiian cave-dwelling cicada in a way that technical images cannot. In times of rapidly increasing insect extinction, his work is also a persistent act of documentation that brings to life the beauty and individuality of a very small animal. HAUNT presents the latest works of the project for the first time in Berlin.

The exhibition concludes with a panel discussion between art and natural science, about drawing as a tool for understanding the world.

From lunar crater to gnat‘s leg

In order to enter spheres invisible to the naked eye, people have developed many optical tools. Images based on such instruments have changed our view of the world.Finally, the invention of the microscope revolutionized biology from the ground up. Today, the electron microscope transforms the bodies of the smallest creatures into such vast terrain that most areas are still unexplored.

The interpretations of the draftsman

Oliver Thie artistically takes up imaging techniques of the natural sciences. During a residency at the Museum of Natural History Berlin (2014-16) he began an in-depth study of the Hawaiian cave-dwelling cicada Oliarus polyphemus, which is only three millimeters in size. Using a scanning electron microscope, he made hundreds of images, that allowed him to explore the animal magnified one thousand times. However, because the apparatus produces images without its own interpretation,Thie interprets the structures by means of drawing. On his „Drawn Expeditions“ shown in the exhibition, he repeatedly reads other aspects out of the microscope images. With the multifaceted interpretation of supposedly unambiguous technical images, Oliver Thie reveals the immeasurable wealth of forms of natural shapes and creates a relationship to other forms of life.