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Stefanie Herr's photo sculptures mock the concept of infinite economic growth

Born in 1974 in Frankfurt, Stefanie Herr initially worked as an architect and architectural model maker. But since 2007 she's been experimenting with photographic relief sculptures to make a point about economic and environmental sustainability.

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Stefanie Herr's hand-crafted cardboard and paper relief sculpture with layered forest photograph, displayed on a white brick wall

Currently living in Barcelona, the visual artist's latest project explores the spatial dimension of stock charts by translating their peaks and valleys into physical coordinates. Completely hand-crafted out of cardboard, aluminium and paper, each piece of the series took about two months to complete.

The piece is intended as a statement about the idea of infinite economic growth on a finite planet. To create it, she mapped the performance of the S&P 500 Pure Growth Index over a six-year period between 2009 and 2015 and transposed it into six sculptural objects covered with photographs of forests.

"The forest is the place where growth is inevitable and vegetation luxuriates," says Herr. "It is a multidimensional space that expands both horizontally and vertically and devours everything within its boundaries."

Gallery interior showing Stefanie Herr's hand-crafted cardboard and aluminium sculptures with forest photography hanging on walls and suspended from ceiling above wooden benches
Layered cardboard and paper relief sculpture with forest photography creating dimensional peaks and valleys mounted on white gallery wall
Stefanie Herr's hand-crafted photo sculpture with wavy geometric folds covered in an image of dense green forest and tree canopy mounted on a white gallery wall
Stefanie Herr's hand-crafted photo sculpture with triangular relief sections showing a forest landscape, referencing stock market growth patterns mapped onto a three-dimensional form
A hand-crafted cardboard and paper relief sculpture covered with photographs of lush forest foliage, its undulating surface creating peaks and valleys that correspond to stock market data
Three-dimensional photo sculpture with geometric peaks and valleys covered in forest imagery, representing stock market data translated into physical form
Wall-mounted text installation in Spanish discussing financial markets and economics as the true driver of contemporary society, accompanied by a digital device on a white shelf below
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