Work in Progress: The Anthropocene Square Meter

Humanity has fundamentally transformed Earth, making the creation of a new geological era, the Anthropocene. This model is physically documenting the Anthropocene as one square meter of Earth’s surface following a method first proposed by the renown geologist and paleontologist Jan Zalasiewicz. By taking the sum of human material intervention and dividing it over the surface of the Earth, the impact of the Anthropocene is shown on one averaged square meter, a size and scale understandable to human. In discussion with Zalasiewicz, THEMA has built the model for the first time. This is the initial step of an ongoing collaborative research project to represent both the vast scale of anthropogenic impact on Earth, as well as its current rate of change and its stark disparities – in particular the contribution of construction to this change. In a documentary way, this model is conveying relentlessly how human culture has affected Earth and thus is stimulating new ways of thinking.