Segment_Popenguine_23-02 (HSD-Edition), 2025 – Jeewi Lee x Phillip C. Reiner

"Fragment" transposes Lee's sand grain research from sculpture to print. Each screenprint depicts a single grain from Popenguine, Senegal, while incorporating actual sand particles into the printing process. The edition follows the Fragment sculpture series — nano-CT scanned sand grains enlarged thousands of times — but shifts scale and medium. Microscopic detail meets physical material: sand becomes both subject and substance. The grain from Popenguine carries traces of West African coastal geology — quartz, feldspar, shell fragments shaped by Atlantic currents. Lee and Reiner's collaboration connects computational geometry with traditional printmaking at Handsiebdruckerei, one of Berlin's established screen printing workshops. The 32-print edition renders one grain's surface topology while embedding countless others in the paper's texture. This material recursion — grains depicting a grain — collapses the distinction between representation and reality. Sand's contradictions surface: abundant yet depleting, individual yet collective, ancient yet industrially consumed for concrete and silicon chips. Each print holds geological time within contemporary process.

Research:
DICOM images from nano-CT scans translate to screenprint layers. The workflow converts cross-sectional imagery, captured at micron resolution, into printable separations. Each DICOM slice reveals internal structure and surface topology, data that transforms into ink densities and screen patterns. Sand particles embedded during printing add physical texture to the optical information. The grain layer sits atop the printed image, placing actual material on top of its own scanned representation. Print separations derive from depth analysis of the scan sequence, maintaining topological accuracy while adapting to screenprint's technical constraints. This process links medical imaging protocols with artistic printmaking, extending CT visualization methods into traditional media.