The Diatomist

Diatoms are nature’s tiny glass workers, building impossibly intricate cases for themselves out of silica.  Victorian enthusiasts collected these single-celled algae and arranged them into kaleidoscopic patterns with micron-level precision. This short, eerie documentary by British filmmaker Matthew Killip introduces us to one of the last practitioners of this art, Klaus Kemp, who finds the diatoms in gutters and horse troughs and transforms them into works of art. It’s an intimate look at a part of nature’s beauty few of us get to see. (For an especially dazzling array of his arrangements, start watching at around 3:13.)