These Stock Exchange Sculptures Map the Ups and Downs of Three Decades

It’s an unusual experiment of data visualization to see an economy’s moments of strength and weakness in the form of a block of wood. These Stock Exchange Sculptures were created by Luke Jerram to offer a different perspective on the global financial crisis.

The project succeeds to the point where no one would likely guess the relationship between these threaded lumber objects and the pecuniary state of a population. But indeed, the forms of this pair of finely carved items depict two compelling graphs.

Every up and down in the New York Stock Exchange between 2004 and 2012 makes up one of the Stock Exchange Sculptures, while the industrial average of the Dow Jones between 1980 and 2012 is outlined in the other. Wood turner Paul Brooks helped to make this dramatic duo, and it will be interesting to see the fragile glass versions that are currently being cast.