Artist Wim Tellier creates large-scale art installations by integrating photographs into their surroundings as a form of landscape art.
He gained international recognition with projects including ‘We Wish’ in 2006, for which he created a 600 m² enlargement of his young son and installed it in cities around the world, culminating at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles; ‘Protect 7-7’ in 2009, the first art installation in Antarctica, comprising six 800 m² enlargements; and ‘We Drift’ in 2013, an installation of one thousand 16 m² photographs that was presented to the public through the natural force of a tidal river.
In 2014, he created 2 art installations at Tomorrowland with Canon. One installation used 46 cameras to produce one of the most unique group portraits ever made.
Wim Tellier pushed his boundaries with his new art project, TIME
On the beach at Knokke-Heist, he installed a circular 3,000 m² image. It is a double image whose main subject is a vulnerable crab enlarged one thousand times. The background consists of fisheye photographs of unique landscapes for which Wim Tellier traveled around the world. The images were intended to give viewers an open perspective on the world.
The project’s graphic and logistical aspects were progressive and revolutionary. The image file exceeded 400 gigabytes. Because of its enormous resolution, the image was printed in 56 sections that were then seamlessly welded together. The photograph weighed 1,800 kg.
The TIME photograph remained on the beach in front of the Knokke-Heist casino for two weeks. Five cubes, each four meters tall, demonstrated the scale of the enlargement. Visitors could walk across the photograph to view the fisheye images. Without realizing it, they contributed to the artwork’s partial destruction, among other things through sand on their shoes. It is difficult to imagine a more striking illustration of humanity’s ecological footprint.
After the exhibition, the conceptually damaged image was cut into twelve wedges. Wim then personally installed the wedges at twelve premier locations around the world: Madagascar, Ethiopia, New Zealand, Portugal, Iceland, Mongolia, Bolivia, Ireland, Nepal, Russia, Morocco, and Patagonia.
Each location then told its own unique story about humanity’s impact on the planet.
