Zes afbeeldingen van voetsporen before 1863

This print presents six images of fossilized footprints. Captured using photographic techniques, each image focuses on the texture and form of the indentations left in ancient sediment. The material here is the earth itself. The labor, over vast stretches of time, involved geological processes transforming soft mud to stone, and then the meticulous work of paleontologists to unearth and document these traces. This careful work allows scientists to classify and interpret the movement of creatures long gone. The images are standardized, numbered, and labeled, as if cataloging specimens in a natural history museum. Yet, the visual qualities of the prints are also quietly compelling. The play of light across the rough surfaces gives a tactile sense of the distant past. Prints like these helped democratize scientific knowledge, allowing people to study these artifacts from a distance. It brings specimens into your hands. By focusing on the process behind these images, we recognize how art intersects with science, and how both are shaped by the labor of observation, documentation, and distribution.