TITLE: STEEL PLANTS
FORMAT: various
TECHNIQUE: sculptural setting of steel metal shavings and light
MATERIAL: metal

What happens when industrial residue begins to resemble living matter? When what we discard starts to speak the language of growth?
In STEELPLANTS (WASTE / NOT — Steel Shavings), steel shavings—by-products of drilling and milling—are removed from their functional context and re-presented as a still life. Elevated onto a pedestal, these traces of precise technical processes shift their meaning. Their fine, curling structures evoke vegetal forms: fragile, branching, almost alive.



Between Industry and Ecology
This visual ambiguity is central to the work. The steel fragments enter into dialogue with rare and endangered plants, connecting two seemingly opposed realms: industrial production and vulnerable ecosystems.

Steel, one of the most ubiquitous materials of our time, is often celebrated for its recyclability—up to 99 percent. Yet even within circular systems, the material carries the imprint of extraction, transformation, and environmental intervention. The shavings are not merely waste or resource; they become indicators of ecological pressure and technological expansion.



Value, Vulnerability, Transformation
By translating industrial residue into the visual language of the still life while echoing the morphology of endangered plants, the work invites a shift in perception. It questions how value is assigned and challenges the separation between natural and artificial, growth and production, fragility and permanence.

STEELPLANTS suggests that the remnants of technical processes hold more than material presence—they carry ecological and symbolic meaning. To see only the shavings and not the plant, only the material and not the cycle, is to overlook the connection—and with it, the urgency embedded within it.