ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

Peter Ginter's 15-Year Photographic Journey Inside CERN's LHC

publication · 2026-04-23

A new book titled 'LHC (collectif), Lammerhuber' documents the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva through photographs by Peter Ginter. Over fifteen years, Ginter captured the construction and operation of the 27-kilometer tunnel ring, 100 meters underground, straddling the Franco-Swiss border. The images reveal engineers, technicians, and the massive underground chambers named Alice and Atlas, filled with stainless steel machinery. The book's essays explore the poetic contrast between the infinitesimal particles being studied and the gigantic scale of the equipment. The project is presented as the largest European scientific endeavor, with implications for contemporary art due to the abstraction of quantum physics.

Key facts

  • Photographer Peter Ginter spent 15 years documenting CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
  • The LHC is a 27-km tunnel ring 100 meters underground near Geneva.
  • The tunnel crosses the Franco-Swiss border.
  • Key chambers include Alice and Atlas.
  • The book is titled 'LHC (collectif), Lammerhuber'.
  • Images show engineers, technicians, and machinery.
  • The project is described as the largest European scientific project.
  • The book includes essays on the poetic contrast between particle scale and equipment size.

Entities

Artists

  • Peter Ginter

Institutions

  • CERN
  • Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire

Locations

  • Geneva
  • Switzerland
  • France

Sources