Julie Upmeyer

VOID FRACTION

An artistic exploration of limestone, limestone quarries and their many by-products, Void Fraction is an ongoing collaboration between artists Mari Rose Pritchard and Julie Upmeyer. The project has taken us from Caernarfon castle to the beaches of Anglesey, along the city walls of Istanbul and into the Geological Society of London, always returning back to our home base - Aber Quarry on Ynys Môn.

The project is an investigation of limestone as a window into deep time, present realities and future thinking. This ‘limestone lens’ has enabled us to imagine the tropical sediments of the carboniferous and envision how our own actions (extraction, care, neglect, destruction, love, labour) might affect the materials of our geological future.

Using quarrying by-products as inspiration, we create immersive experiences, installations, performances, moving image, sculpture and have recently published a book ‘a limestone glossary - volume 1’.

Void Fraction projects (So far)

This all began with a seemingly simple line of inquiry - we were researching the permeability (both physically and conceptually) of Caernarfon Castle’s limestone walls. Drawn to a local source for limestone, we visited Aber Quarry. On our very first visit, we encountered not only the cavernous quarry but its many by-products - limestone powder an aqueous, semi-solid and almost rock-like state. Poured, it formed an opaque milky pool, piled high it became towering white mountains. We were instantly transfixed by the other-worldliness of this altered quarry landscape. One discovery led to the next. Our fascination has only intensified. This is whats happened so far.

The Quarry

During our frequent visits to Aber Quarry on Anglesey, we dove deeply into the depths of aqueous limestone dust, delving into its transformative powers. Exploring the physical qualities of limestone in this unique state, we dug, sifted, filled, replicated, excavated, measured, cast, eroded, displaced, dehydrated and dissolved this mysterious, yet ubiquitous substance.

“it seems to repel the water almost on a cellular level, it seems to sweat, pushing it out to the surface as it is compressed”

“while drying, it wants to reform itself into rock-like striations,  layering and splitting apart in smooth planes”