Introduction to my current practice

Observing layers and folds of geological strata tells the story of Earth’s time and material processes. Encountering deep time strata allows us to imagine stories of turmoil, gentle sedimentation, hefty shifting landmass, erupting volcanoes and slow amalgamation of rhythmic, swirling microscopic material particles in tropic warm waters surrounded by plants and animals now petrified as a reminder of Earth’s deep time. Turning ourselves toward this visual cacophony of silence, we can hear the language of material agency.

Listening to current discourse in social science and material-based practices within art, we can hear voices that are searching for new imaginings to navigate our tumultuous times. Through my research into immersive, volatile hands-on processes with geological materiality, I encountered vibrant borders and crossings, challenging the animate-inanimate divide. From these liminal edges, embodied relationality and ethical attitudes toward geological strata can take root. Ellsworth and Kruse’s (2013) intentions* reflect my aspiration to create “works that do not simply take up the geologic as a theme,” but that “activate formats, methods, models, ideas, and aesthetic experience in ways that seek to recalibrate ‘the human’ in relation to ‘the geologic’.”

Through my work and research-based practice, I am hoping to join interdisciplinary conversations, posing ethical questions that can evolve into practical guidelines when collaborating with geological strata in their extracted and mineral forms. The findings of my current practice emerged from processes and reflections that involved working with drawing, analogue photography, 16mm film, and sustainable developing techniques, through which I explored location, materiality, and the framing and fragmentation of the human gaze in relation to mineral extraction.

*Notes: Ellsworth, E. and Kruse, J. (2013) Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, New York: Punctum