The Return of Mother Nature: The Miniature World of Lori Nix

Circulation Desk, 2012

Lori Nix things big and works small. Her project “The City”, which began in 2005, seeks to recreate in miniature everyday urban spaces in a post apocalyptic world. The people are gone and what remains are these deteriorating spaces and their ever-changing relationship with the natural world. Nix says:

I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it’s human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man’s encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.

Many of us know her from her piece Library from 2007 which is one of the more popular book images circulating on the web

Library, 2007

Map Room, 2010

Nix’s Hand while working on Beauty Shop

Great stuff.

More at Nix’s website

Slate features Nix and her dioramas on their new photo blog Behold