Extraordinary Mineral Stories

Minerals are protagonists in this multiform editorial project, which is developed in various chapters, as a saga. The Prologue of this project was presented and supported by the 20th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Sesc_Videobrasil, happened in Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, in 2017. It comprised of an exhibition with readings.

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A chain of stories deriving from science fiction literature is combined with facts and documents from Brazilian history linked to the exploitation of minerals. Images forming this first part of the project derive mainly from the collections of Maison d’Ailleurs [the science fiction museum at Yverdon-les-Bains], FIGU [Free Community for Interests for Borders and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies], which is Billy Meier’s archive in Hinterschmidrüti, the Eisenbibliothek Georg Fischer [Schaffhausen] and the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève [Geneva].

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Minerals are searched, encountered or imagined in the ground and beyond the sky, emphacising the ambition, mythology and invention within mineral exploitation.When imagining colonising other worlds in view of the end of Earth’s resources, endless exploitations of the outer space are reproduced, in which the presence of richeness to be exploited by incredible machines and amazing technologies are projected. This myth is reassured by the collection of Billy Meier, a Swiss farmer who has the largest photographic archive of flying objects, and who keeps a metal alloy as the ultimate proof of his contacts with the Pleiadians. We also observe narrations about meteorites, – enveloped by their mysterious provenance and stories around their finding and collecting.

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[2017] “Prologue”: Live and recorded performed conference [25”] . Photographs and clipping from Billy Meier and FIGU archive [flyer with Portuguese translation]. Video “Contact”: dir. Larry Savadove, Lee Elders, 1982 [edited version by Victor Galvão]. Animation: Adriane Puresa. Audio: Jalver Bethônico. Poster in collaboration with Jônio Bethônico [66x99 cm].