Audience Award 2020

(Photos: Mikkel Kaldal)

Practice
My practice unfolds in a dynamic tension between drawing and sculpture. The works stem from the attempt to combine these two forms of expression and originate in the concepts of scale, measurement and volume. As individuals we move around here on Earth, consciously or unconsciously registering everything around us, on the basis of our own body and physicality. Each one of us is our own roving measuring stick and whether the measurements that surround us are theoretical or real, we nonetheless relate them to the physical space our body creates. In other words, it is the human perception of the world that I am trying to interpret in precise and conceptual works that simultaneously contain complexity and numerous possible meanings.

Kilo(Cubic)Metre (100 x 100 x 100 cm - 1000 meters parashute line, steel)
In the work Kilo(Cubic)Metre the distance of 1 kilometre is combined with 1 cubic metre.
1000 metres of parachute line has been wound around a one cubic metre volume resulting in the one dimensional
measure of distance becoming a three dimensional volume, freely suspended in the space.
The word metre comes from the Greek metron - ‘a measure’.
Up until the end of the 18th century units of length (foot, alen, inches etc.) were based on the human body and
were measured by measuring devices. These were normally constructed of metal and each country had its own
prototypes that often differed measurably from those of other countries.
In 1790 The French Academy of Sciences presented a proposal to define a basic unit of length based on an
immutable size and chose the distance from the North Pole and the Equator measured along its meridian that
intersects Paris. In the period 1792-97 a measurement of the distance between Dunkerque and Barcelona that
lies on this meridian was taken. Based on knowledge of the geographic width of the two end points, the entire
earth quadrant could be measured and the metre was defined as one-tenth million of this distance. Today, a metre
is measured with the help of laser light, whose wavelength is very precise. One metre is therefor defined as the
distance light travels in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299.792.458 of a second.
Even thought light is now used to define a metre, the measurement is still grounded in the size of the earth and all
units of distance and volume that are in use in Denmark are based on metres.

I + I + I (220 x 200 x 30 cm - Pencil on paper, mdf)
Where the work Kilo (Cubic) Metre springs from a single metre and accordingly the size of the earth, I + I + I is
centred on the human physique, on my own physique.
The drawings are 60 x 220 cm and are created standing with a parallel ruler. The disposition of the lines is
random, but controlled by the physical process of drawing them. The density of the lines is greatest there where the
working posture is most comfortable.
In 1943 the French architect Le Corbusier created a scale of measurement based on the human body. The Modulor’s
proportions follow the golden ratio. The proportions can be scaled up or down to infinity with the help of the
Fibonacci numbers. Le Corbusier was continuing a 2000 year old quest for a universal mathematical system that
applies both to nature and the man-made environment, an endeavour that had also occupied Pythagoras, Vitruvius
and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Marie Kaarøe
(born 1971) lives and works in Aarhus, DK.
Architect m.a.a. School of Architecture, Aarhus 1991-1997
Aarhus Kunstakademi 2016-2020
@marie.kaaroe.art