Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Gestures)

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Gestures) consists of a wall piece and a series of poster which give insight into the archival system and images of the ongoing research ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’. The posters with the changing index of Gestures are published in English, French, and Portuguese.

Marjolijn Dijkman’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum is an ever-expanding collection of photographs, assembled since 2005, that observe how people organize their living environments worldwide. This growing collection of images is subjected to a cataloging system that further underlines this shift from mapping a landscape to assembling an inventory of people’s actions upon it. Any information that would tie the images to specific places or people, cultural or economic contexts, is deliberately omitted. Instead, the images are sorted into categories such as ‘adapt, appropriate, conceal, demonstrate, direct, embrace, suffocate’ – all terms that typify the material realities we see as being traces and effects of human gestures.