Think like a mountain; breathe like the ice
Research, video, sound, interactive and text.
A molecular-level mapping, linking two physically distant, molecularly linked sites- a colonial Spanish silver mine in Bolivia and a glacier in the remote Peruvian Andes.
This ongoing body of work considers these linked spaces through a series of video, sound and interactive works, each part following a specific research line and collaborating with climatologists and glacierologists.
This research enabled the pulling together of interdisciplinary work with some amazing South American collaborators, to link a land-based Anthropogenic story across contintents.These works could not have been made without the assistance of collaborators:
– Lima-based independent arts org, Hawapi, Peru
– Dr Christian Yarlequé Instituto Nacional de Investigación en Glaciares y Ecosistemas de Montaña INAIGEM, Peru
– Gustavo Valdivia, anthropologist, sound artist, Peru
– Quechua communty of the Phinaya district
– The Centre for Ice and Climate Science, Denmark and Dr Paul Vallelonga
– Dr Andrew Yip, Sydney
Above: SATURNS BREATH video, 2020
(shorts from full video)
Flags bearing an image of an oversized galena crystal (lead/silver/zinc; the form mined in Potosi silver mine) were raised over the Quelccaya ice cap by men from the region, in an act of recognition of the molecular level territorialisation. These flags act as standards for the emergent anthropogenic landscape- lead over ice, extraction over precipitation.
More about this research: HERE
Above:
The Sound of Wind Through the Crystaline Forest 2020
Documentation of interactive work commissioned for CRISTAIS DO TEMPO/ TIME CRYSTALS, curated by Alexandre Milagres and Tadeus Mucelli, MMGerdau Museum of Mines and Metal, Brazil.
Propositionally past-casting a view of the site of Potosí silver mine (the largest silver mine in history), on the Cerro Rico mountain, Bolivia, as it may have appeared just before silver was discovered in the 1500s.
Amongst a grove of now-rare queñua trees (polylepis tarapacana) is a grouping of flags depicting a galena crystal, the silver/zinc/lead form of mineral load that was mined at Potosí. The mountain dreams of its future.
Much of the silver used in Spanish silver dollars across the 16-18th centuries was from Potosí. Some fo these coins were transported to Sydney, where they were converted to the first local colonial currency ‘holey dollars’.
Above: Breathe Like a Mountain video 2020
Quelccaya mountain top is an Apu, a holy spirit, in Quechua culture
The Quelccaya ice cap is exquisitely sensitive to air temperature. As the atmospheric temperature increases with global warming, the mountaintop receives less snow, falling instead as rain. It is predicted to be gone within 40 years.
This video documentation of the interactive work models the icecap’s appearance against atmospheric CO2 levels decade by decade, from the 1980s until the 2060’s, the last decade of its existence.
The Last Ice(new work 2021)
Collapsing the space between two bodies of water- the melting margins of Quelccaya glaciated icecap, and the site of storage of scientific icecore samples from glaciers in an industrial freezer in Copenhagen. The last place that these frozen landscapes will exist.
The initial archival element for this research, the Holey Dollar- a counterpunched Spanish silver dollars 1790’s. Australia’s first local colonial coin and fiat currency.
Silver Tree UV Cured print, linen, feathers, fabric, beads, trimmings, wood. 2.2 x 2.5 m