ATLAS OF SMALL AND LARGE OBSERVATIONS

Cecilia Westerberg presents a new book object

that combines collage, animation and drawings 

at The Danish Printmakers Association in Copenhagen.

The artist spent a month in October 2012 in 

Rome studying antique maps, scientific measuring

devices, the manuscripts of La Sphera and the 

audience chambers that these maps were made for.

By painting the walls green and hanging drawings 

of maps, compass rosettes and measuring instruments

used to gauge time and place through the ages on them, 

Westerberg attempts to recreate an audience chamber

with inspiration from the original rooms.  

The book object measures 70 x 50 centimeters 

and includes 16 spreads of original collages with 

drawings  on hand-colored paper. The book is 

an Atlas of Small and Large Observations that 

starts with outer space and moves onto world maps

through the ages. The Komodo dragon - the oldest, 

prehistoric animal plus land and sea maps are used 

as points of departure for more poetic spreads further on. 

This Atlas is considered a work-in-progress - 

one that can never be completed.

Westerberg works in an area rife with paradox. 

Never before have we had access to so much knowledge, 

yet our longing for coherence and an understanding of our

place in the world becomes ever more difficult for most of 

us to define. The need to create a book, an Atlas, where 

everything is recorded is an anachronism, an impossibility - 

yet nonetheless perhaps a fundamental need for the many 

that lives as project makers of today.