Multipolar brings together watercolours and a kinetic sculpture developed through Anna Rún’s continuing research into Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetic pigments register forces that cannot be seen directly, forming marks whose positions arise through attraction, movement and the changing relations among materials. Each image contains more than one polar orientation, resisting the idea of north as a singular and permanent direction.

 

Volcanic rock records the magnetic field present when it cools. Read across stones of different ages, these records reveal that magnetic north has occupied many positions and that Earth’s poles have reversed repeatedly. In the exhibition, points distributed across the walls refer to orientations derived from Icelandic rock, placing present-day navigation within a geological history of movement.

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At the centre of the space, 240 metres of red rope were wound around a column rotating counterclockwise. The red line recalls the convention through which compass needles identify north as the correct direction. Wrapped, accumulated and returned through counterclockwise rotation, that line no longer leads toward a single destination.

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The work extends geomagnetic research into questions of human relations and political geography. Invisible fields become a way to consider the signals, attractions and dependencies through which bodies affect one another beyond conscious perception. At the same time, the dominance of north within cartography and language opens onto histories of exploration, colonial alignment and the geopolitical construction of the “global North.” Multipolar proposes orientation as plural, contingent and relational rather than fixed between two opposing poles.