Photo Journal Monday: Maria Sturm
Street Cut in Mountain © Maria Sturm
Images and text sent by Maria Sturm
Text written by Iris Sikking
Photo Edited by Lucia Luzzani
How to Kill a Tree
Photographer Maria Sturm has been commissioned by the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie to address our dependence on cement as a building material. This industry is historically linked to the Heidelberg region, where HeidelbergCement, one of the world's largest cement manufacturers, is based since 1873. Cement is as versatile as its use, but it is also controversial: its processing is extremely CO2-intensive (the cement industry is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases) and its extraction has serious consequences for people and the landscape. In addition, the worldwide scarcity of sand is endangering production.
Traces in Slag Sand © Maria Sturm
Coming Soon… (Swiss Construction Poles) 1 © Maria Sturm
In How to Kill a Tree Sturm explored these ambivalences of this most widely used man-made material, reliable, solid, easy and quick to fit, and the only material that can give shape to high rise buildings. Sturm wonders what alternatives there will be in time in showing the vulnerability of concrete in dissecting it. She made a thin cross-section of limestone and printed it on translucent paper. These microscopic images are used to analyze rock samples for their mineral composition and quality.
While gaining insight into the costs and benefits, Sturm went on a photographic journey past factories, cities and highways and searched into her family archives to understand her own relationship with this ubiquitous material.
660,000 m3 of Concrete 1 © Maria Sturm
You Gotta Sweep Constantly in the Cement Plant © Maria Sturm
25kg Adhesive and Reinforcement Mortar © Maria Sturm
Stone Eats Pillar 1 © Maria Sturm
My Old Apartment with View of the Highway © Maria Sturm
