ELEMENT 79 | Stardust

Element 79, Stardust is part of a series of fifteen artworks in public spaces as part of the Canon of Overijssel. The canon window “Golden Mountains” describes how, after the construction of the Zwolle-Almelo railway line, two businessmen came up with the idea that gold could be found here. A concession application was submitted to the provincial government, but it soon became clear that the dream profits would not be realised and the fever quickly subsided.

The element gold originated in the distant past, long before the Earth was formed, in a star that was at least eight times the mass of our sun. The gold we find on Earth today is therefore pure “stardust”.

In the periodic table of elements, all known elements are arranged in order of atomic number. Gold has the atomic number 79 in this periodic table, and each gold atom has 79 electrons.

Against the steep slope of the ravine in Nijverdal, 79 gold-plated spheres sparkle in a strict pattern inspired by the way the 79 electrons circle in different “shells” around the nucleus of the gold atom.

Is this “new gold of Nijverdal” as rare today as it was 100 years ago? In any case, it is no longer the precious metal that wars are fought over, murders are committed for, and people become so greedy for. Now anyone can find gold along the Goudzoekerspad (Gold Diggers’ Path) in Nijverdal. The 79 gold-plated spheres sparkle in the sunlight or hide in the twilight, and they are the new gold diggers, the connoisseurs, the romantics, the couples in love and the patient people who know when to go to the Goudzoekersbocht to harvest their “Golden Moments”.