Traveler 277 2009

Originally displayed at GOMA for the exhibition ‘Fairy Tales’, these 15 works are drawn from contemporary artists Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz’s ongoing ‘Travelers’ series of snow globes, each of which presents a disorienting scene of existential dread and kitsch. Fairy-tale intrigue abounds in these works, which depict sentient trees stalking a woodsman, a figure in a hazmat suit confronting oversized mushrooms, and a murder of crows eyeing their prey — just to name a few of their mysteries — in minute detail. Each contains a unique tale devised by the artists, set against a stark, icy wilderness and projecting a feeling of unease. The name of the series itself is a cheeky play on the form: travellers they may be, but there is no escaping the fact these characters are sealed within their little worlds forever.