Sangmin Oh | Cradle of Layers

“Cradle of Layers” is a research-driven project that explores copper as a material connecting textile, infrastructure, and environmental change. Copper is not only an industrial material used in wires, pipes, energy systems, and communication networks, but also one of the basic materials through which contemporary life is organized. Electricity moves through copper, and cities, data systems, energy grids, and everyday technologies depend on it. At the same time, copper is tied to extraction, labor, resource geopolitics, economic value, and environmental damage.

In this project, Sangmin returns copper to a slower and more tactile process by weaving, knitting, and knotting it into flexible structures. He approaches copper as a material that reveals how social and political systems are built through physical infrastructures. He will test how copper reacts to humidity, salt, heat, wind, and intense light in Athens and the Mediterranean climate, with oxidation becoming a visible record of exposure and place. He will also explore how copper threads conduct electricity and respond to touch, airflow, or human bodily proximity.

The outcome will include material tests, knitted and woven sample archives, structural drawings, and research notes that consider copper as an active infrastructure shaped by environmental conditions, geopolitical extraction, labor, and social systems.