Where Are We Moving?
Artwork details
Polina Zhadko · 2022
Oil, acrylic, paper, pin on canvas
80 × 60 cm
About the work
"This is the Hadron Collider, that CERN built..."
The painting looks toward the history of particle physics and the search for the Higgs boson. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN supplies the central image: a ring in which beams travel in opposite directions before meeting at collision points.
Like its real counterpart, the painted collider consists of two parallel streams where particles move in opposite directions, colliding at four points along the ring. If you look closely, the brushstrokes on the canvas follow two opposing directions, meeting at four intersections — a visual echo of the actual collision points.
The title — Where Are We Moving? — poses a double question. On one level, it reflects the physical journey of particles racing toward collision. On another, it asks where each of us, and humanity as a whole, is heading as we accelerate ever faster into an unknown future.
Related series
Augmented reality
The artist’s portfolio identifies this painting as part of a series viewable in augmented reality.