vik muniz + marcelo coelho etch microscopic castles on grains of sand

brazilian artists vik muniz and marcelo coelho have visualized a monumental project on a microscopic scale: the two have etched grandiose castles onto the surface of individual, miniscule grains of sand. reversing the traditional notions of these fortresses being built in three dimensions from the sand itself, muniz and coelho instead reinterpret the term ‘sandcastle’ by intricately carving the form directly onto a single grain. with a canvas of just a half a millimeter in length, the precise portrayals are naked to the human eye, created with the use of a focused ion beam and scanning electron microscope, and are later blown up as four-feet-wide macro photos, which describe the elaborate detail in high quality.

muniz tells the creator’s project ‘when someone tells you it’s a grain of sand, there’s a moment where your reality falls apart and you have to reconstruct it. you have to step back and ask what the image is and what it means’. the works are currently exhibiting at the tel aviv museum of art until august 2nd, 2014 as part of a comprehensive retrospective on the work of vik muniz.

a castle etched onto the surface of a grain of sand
all images courtesy of marcelo coelho

the precise drawings are naked to the human eye

grandiose fortresses are rendered on the individual grain

detail view of the engraved illustration

the sand which the castles are microscopically engrained onto