Mutant Ruins and Flows
Published in Archivalia
Editors In-ruins with Roberta Garieri
Contributors
Mathilde Ayoub
Stella Bottai
Federica Bueti
Clelia Coussonnet
Roberta Garieri
Maria Luigia Gioffré
Nicola Guastamacchia
Ottavia Mosca
Nicola Nitido
Vito Teti
Giulio Verago
My essay Mutant Ruins and Flows aimed at linking archaeology and water, and consider them through the entwined notions of erosion and porosity, and that of transmission. Although they seem contradictory, the fluid, impermanent, open and moving qualities of water echo strongly that of archaeology for me. I approach them as spaces of potentialities that embrace changes of state (including even total alteration) as well as speculation. Through four artists’ works around the Mediterranean, I contemplated the idea of remains and flows as mutant entities.
In my text, I focused on the multifaceted installation Bleu auquel nous appartenons (2020-21) by Camille Pradon; on Paky Vlassopoulou’s installation To Love the Hibiscus, You Must First Love the Monsoon (2022); on Stefanie Loveday’s photo series and sound installation To Sink and To Cave (2020), as well as several works by Hera Büyüktaşcıyan.
Mutant Ruins and Flows
Published in Archivalia
Editors In-ruins with Roberta Garieri
Contributors
Mathilde Ayoub
Stella Bottai
Federica Bueti
Clelia Coussonnet
Roberta Garieri
Maria Luigia Gioffré
Nicola Guastamacchia
Ottavia Mosca
Nicola Nitido
Vito Teti
Giulio Verago
My essay Mutant Ruins and Flows aimed at linking archaeology and water, and consider them through the entwined notions of erosion and porosity, and that of transmission. Although they seem contradictory, the fluid, impermanent, open and moving qualities of water echo strongly that of archaeology for me. I approach them as spaces of potentialities that embrace changes of state (including even total alteration) as well as speculation. Through four artists’ works around the Mediterranean, I contemplated the idea of remains and flows as mutant entities.
In my text, I focused on the multifaceted installation Bleu auquel nous appartenons (2020-21) by Camille Pradon; on Paky Vlassopoulou’s installation To Love the Hibiscus, You Must First Love the Monsoon (2022); on Stefanie Loveday’s photo series and sound installation To Sink and To Cave (2020), as well as several works by Hera Büyüktaşcıyan.
‘How do liquid elements shape and dig hard ones? How do they affect the integrity of matter? Is what is carved out lost or does it get embedded into water, living on differently? It is said that water records time, stories and memories, that it absorbs anything that leaks into it. As such, can it be a vessel for transmission? A way to retrieve sidelined, sunk, forgotten narratives? How does porosity play between aqueous and solid substances?’
‘How do liquid elements shape and dig hard ones? How do they affect the integrity of matter? Is what is carved out lost or does it get embedded into water, living on differently? It is said that water records time, stories and memories, that it absorbs anything that leaks into it. As such, can it be a vessel for transmission? A way to retrieve sidelined, sunk, forgotten narratives? How does porosity play between aqueous and solid substances?’
About ‘Archivalia is an extended reflection that comes up beside the residency and research programme carried out by In-ruins on entanglements between archaeology and the ways how it is reframed within contemporary art practices. As an ongoing archive, the volume collects texts and visual contributions to re-explore and rediscover the critical potential embodied in the ruin.’
‘Remains and water appear to both have a strong gestational force that can prompt mutation, bringing to my mind Luce Irigaray in Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (1980) when she writes “how many faces are still to be born in the bottom of the sea?”’
— Quotes by Clelia Coussonnet, Mutant Ruins and Flows, 2022
Info
Published by In-ruins, Arte contemporanea e archeologia
Design by Lilia Di Bella
2022, Italian
17 x 24 cm, 174 pages, softcover
ISBN 978-8-894729-70-2
About ‘Archivalia is an extended reflection that comes up beside the residency and research programme carried out by In-ruins on entanglements between archaeology and the ways how it is reframed within contemporary art practices. As an ongoing archive, the volume collects texts and visual contributions to re-explore and rediscover the critical potential embodied in the ruin.’
Info
Published by In-ruins, Arte contemporanea e archeologia
Design by Lilia Di Bella
2022, Italian
17 x 24 cm, 174 pages, softcover
ISBN 978-8-894729-70-2
‘Remains and water appear to both have a strong gestational force that can prompt mutation, bringing to my mind Luce Irigaray in Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (1980) when she writes “how many faces are still to be born in the bottom of the sea?”’
— Quotes by Clelia Coussonnet, Mutant Ruins and Flows, 2022
