Growth Diagram

"Growth Diagram" is a data sculpture visualizing the evolution of the Museum of Ethnography’s ever-expanding collection from 1872 to 2022, encompassing 861,678 objects.
As a central piece within the Museum Galaxies theme in the museum’s new permanent exhibition, inaugurated in Fall 2024, it offers visitors insight into the institution’s core principles—tracing the collection’s origins, history, object handling, and ethnographic perspectives.
Measuring 6 meters in length and 4 meters in height, Growth Diagram serves both as a conceptual guide and a tangible representation of the collection’s scale and complexity. Color-coded elements, created using custom oil-painted palettes, mark the formation and separation of subcollections. Hand-carved lines, each symbolizing 100 objects, embody the collection’s vastness as well as the lifelines of objects entering the collection. The sculpture’s supporting legs highlight key milestones in the museum’s history, while engraved divisions on the concrete base indicate the institution’s various locations and time spent in each.
The sculpture was created using inventory and registry data from the Museum of Ethnography, transforming archival information into an immersive, physical form.