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The accelerator and the carpenter

Part of the wooden sculpture named for the Large Hadron Collider.

Carpenters at DESY never expected to rebuild the Large Hadron Collider--but they did part of it, out of wood. Now, that 1/25th scale model of the LHC's ATLAS detector, featured in this month's symmetry, isn't the only wooden interpretation of the experiment.

Russian artist Nikolay Polissky creates "land art," which consists of large structures built from many smaller, individually shaped pieces of wood. His latest piece is called Large Hadron Collider, and is Polissky's tribute to the massive experiment. Inspired by the deep connection LHC scientists have with the natural world, Polissky made drawings of metal machinery, wires, and cables that he and his team of carpenters carved out of wood. The entire piece consists of many separate structures, all resembling pieces of an odd wooden playground, with some of them towering over fifteen feet tall.

Now you can watch a video documenting the entire process of planning, carving, and building the installation.

Images of the piece can be found on Polissky's website or in this press release from the Mudam Museum in Luxembourg, where the piece will be shown.