Marika Troili

And smoke is billowing out of the chimneys

Exhibited in the context of Metsän henki / Forest Spirit, Mustarinda, Finland, 2014.

Known Knowns

20 BW prints on
semi-transparent A4.

Re-visits to a fertilizer plant, Lithuania 2013.

The exhibition brings together traces of thought, movement, and images that were gathered over the course of twenty visits to a factory in the middle of a remote rural landscape in late autumn. Annually this factory outputs 1,800,000 tons of chemical fertilizers used in agriculture. They promise to "ensure effective growth and ripening, faster root development, rapid nutrient absorption, prevent leaf yellowing", and make plants "consume less water, contain more proteins and sugar".

Through my repetitive visits I tried to glimpse the many surfaces which the factory builds around itself, and to sense what is it that keeps going on inside its fences and far beyond, where its products land and cause effects on crop fields, aquatic ecosystems, and forests. The project explores what can and what cannot be seen, testing degrees between knowns and unknowns.