These are Diatoms.

Teeny-Tiny, microscopic, their bodies are housed inside a silica cell wall. (Glass is amorphous silica) so they look like moving crystals.

This installation treats them like cosmic giants.

Zoomed in, all aglow, they are not naturally bioluminescent but do capture light beautifully because of their glass exoskeleton.

Here, they look as powerful as the planets do.

In actuality they are even more so impactful in our lives than our cosmic neighbours.

(Astrologers would disagree - sorry not sorry).

Reasons why diatoms are amazing

• Diatoms are as old as the dinosaurs. And they still exist!

• They make up the primary level of the ocean’s food chain (zooplankton all the way to Blue Whales).

• Diatoms also regulate the Carbon cycle, producing more than 20% of Earths Oxygen supply. Basically, one of the most ecologically important species to ever exist.

• Diatomaceous earth- old deep sea sediments of Diatoms, was used to stabilise very volatile and explosive Nitroglycerin.

This was how Alfred Nobel invented Dynamite! 🧨

In conclusion: Diatoms are minute and marvellous and remind us that the most powerful of things doesn’t always have to be the largest.