It has been a busy few weeks preparing for The Geological Unconscious at Hypha HQ – a group exhibition, co-curated by Julie F Hill and myself, exploring themes of stone consciousness and human-mineral encounters, destabilising assumptions about passive matter and a stable Earth.
Congo, 14 × 20.5 × 6 cm. Photographed in the Museum of Natural History, Paris by Julie F Hill.
Responding to Jason Groves’ inquiry into the mineral imaginary in his eponymous book, as well as the ‘Writing of Stones’ as proposed by writer and mineral collector Roger Caillois, the exhibition exposes the complex entanglements between the organic and the inorganic; the human and the lithic. The Geological Unconscious is viewed through disruptive Surrealist strategies, engagements with the aesthetics of geo-materiality and material processes that attend to the growth and transformation of matter. These artistic ‘excavations’ highlight the toll of extractive industries on our planet, whilst inspiring reverence for the geological lineages of deep, cosmic time. Theories of Animism and Panpsychism are also brought to
bear on ways of attributing agency to inorganic realms.
I am thrilled to be exhibiting with Julie F Hill, Charlie Franklin, Rona Lee and Deborah Tchoudjinoff.
An accompanying events programme includes an urban geology walk with Geologist Ruth Siddall, discussing the origins of the local built environment; an installation and tasting by chef Moonhyung Lee who explores human-mineral entanglements through digestion; a crystal growing workshop led by Julie F Hill and I will be offering visitors lithomancy readings every Friday afternoon.
Investigating human/mineral entanglements for new work to be installed at Hypha HQ for The Geological Unconscious. Video of human activity projected through distorting optical lenses transforms the anthropocentric position to imagine the perspective of the rock. The pattern of lenses is informed by the molecular structure of magnetite,
Magnetite is a naturally magnetic mineral found in many organism’s cells including human brain cells. Mined magnetite is used in industrial and mechanical processes and its use in combustion engines and braking systems is releasing nanoscale pollutant particles from traffic into the air which are finding their way into brain cells in high percentages causing concerns with links to degenerative brain diseases. I have been filming the stop start constant stream of traffic at a local roundabout and made a cast of a brain in gelatine with suspended iron filings. The filings oxidised and so the brain took on an iron red tinge and after a few days it cleaved down the centre and gradually as it dried became more and more chiton like.
Chitons are remarkable molluscs that have changed little in hundreds of millions of years. The chiton has hundreds of tiny eyes in its shell, which is made of eight articulating plates. It is the only known creature with lenses made of minerals rather than protein. Another distinctive feature of the chiton is having rows of teeth primed with magnetite, which aid its homing capabilities through magnetoreception and allow chomping on the hard rock surfaces it clings to. Inside the teeth of some species, the mineral santabarbaraite has been found, named after Santa Barbara, a mining district in Italy where it was first discovered and that honours Saint Barbara, who is the patron saint of mining and tunnelling. Santabarbaraite is also one of the few minerals named after a woman.
Fantastic day chiton hunting in the rockpools on the stunning East Sussex coast. Thanks to family who helped find these well camouflaged unique creatures.
Saint Barbara, was adopted by miners and underground workers as patron saint after the pursuit of geology and the widespread use of gunpowder in mining escalated in the 1600’s. She may have a dubious authenticity but her benedictions are still sought today with many statues installed at the entrances to Crossrail and a large ceremony on her saints day, 4th December, performed by local priests before tunnelling went ahead. Even at CERN the epicentre of scientific rigour, a shrine to Saint Barbara was established at every shaft site of the Large Hadron Collider requiring excavation and a blessing performed even if the priest had to be lowered by crane down the shaft to achieve this.
My mother’s name was Barbara and her birthday 6th December is very close to Saint Barbara’s day on the 4th. It would be great to discover she arrived two days late but there is no one alive now to ask.
Small grains of magnetite are common in igneous rocks, formed from magma having cooled and solidified within the Earth’s crust, and also in metamorphic rock, formed when existing rock is transformed physically or chemically at extreme temperatures.
These processes happen on other planets as well as Earth and so magnetite has also been found in meteorites.
Using a digital microscope to look at the structure of the chondrite meteorite NWA 16975 discovered in the Sahara in 2024 which displays numerous and obvious chondrules and flecks of nickel iron in a fine grained matrix.
Also the fragment I have from the Diogenite meteorite NWA 7831 found in Morocco in 2013.
Looking at wonderfully colourful geological maps of Greece to locate the ancient area of Magnesia – the region where magnetite was first discovered and where its name has derived from – known as “magnes lithos” (stone from Magnesia). Definitely want to plan a research trip to this beautiful region around Thessaloniki.
Exhibitions
Whatshesaid collective of artists present Terra Incognita at Thames-side Studios Gallery – charting and cataloguing the disregarded, the everyday, its surface textures, accumulations, sedimentations.
Joao Villas and Victoria Ahrens showing in Spectral Matters at APT Gallery An understated beautifully curated show whose work references the ephemeral materiality of sound, video, photography and print. The work overlaps and crosses over, both artists responding to the other’s practice. The images create matter, as spectral matter gives agency to the materiality of its own making, while haunting the space with its frequency- it vibrates. The exhibition explores memory, technology and the Anthropocene- and how the disappearing materiality of the world is captured through ephemeral means.
This approach not only simplifies huge concepts for a younger audience but gives everyone a pause to think about language. The tourist visiting new places may not have the word to describe an unfamiliar object and so must find a way to describe it using known language. This is an effective way of opening up new interpretations and perspectives and encouraging curiosity to discover and explore the unknown.
Susan Eyre 