This series titled "Impossible Measures" comprises of two works; "60 Degrees" a mirrored and abstract re-working of an instrument, and the namesake of the series "Impossible Measures" is a series of sixteen etchings, looks at the obfuscation of direction through the photographing of navigational silhouettes. This obfuscation is from time, as knowledge is gained and lost repeatedly.
Inspired by the Royal Geographical Society’s extensive collection of exploration paraphernalia and instruments, these etchings feature artefacts such as Livingstone and Darwin’s pocket sextants, and Gertrude Bell’s theodolite. These remarkable objects delineated the world.
This series of works also takes inspiration from Robert Dudley’s 1647 masterpiece “Dell’Arcano del Mare” [The Secrets of the Sea] from The Sunderland Collection.
This magnificent and very scarce sea atlas was revolutionary in its time: it was the first sea atlas of the world; the first to use Gerard Mercator’s projection; the earliest to show magnetic deviation; the first to show currents and prevailing winds; and the first to expound the advantages of ‘Great Circle Sailing’ (i.e. the shortest distance between two points on a globe).
