▻ Geological Interactions
StoneStatements Editions
Project developed for the BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA, Venice, 2021
As One Planet (Giardini, Central Pavilion)
Curator Hashim Sarkis (with Roi Salgueiro Barrio and Gabriel Kozlowski)
How will we live together?
The project StoneStatements Editions departs from the interrogation of how to see stones and rocks as components of Earth’s life, belonging to an overall living system, despite the fact that they may seem “lifeless” and extractable. It takes the form or the gesture of an editorial concept that acts like a “geomediator” and it is launched with the announcement of five book titles. These are all imagined, wished for, and suggested, to be developed, carrying relevant questions to be further elaborated and debated about humans’ relationships to stones. The announcements are photographs of book covers-posters-manifests.
I propose a “re-signification” of stones and rocks – be they in form of gravel, mountains, or even less monumental landmarks – transforming the way they are seen as lifeless objects of extraction without agency. “StoneStatements Editions” aims to solicit a debate, encouraging ideas which problematize our relationship to stones and minerals at large, and allow these problematic relationships to emerge to the public and become visible.
Although the initial aim of the project is to propose questions on books covers, their title-statements outline potential inquiries that can lead to collective writing. It is not an entirely fictive editorial project, as the first collective publication is available at www.mabebethonico.online.
Sneak preview Biennale: https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2021/mabe-bethonico.
Installation Description:
Five photographs [175 x 135cm each], video, poster, e-book.
Other constituents of the project:
Audio piece and photograph presented within the project "Future Assembly"; Instagram campaign [#stonestatementseditions, #bethonicomabe]; Sneak Preview video for Biennial’s official website.
Team:
Mabe Bethônico (Brazil, b. 1966) in collaboration with Elaine Ramos (Brazil, b. 1974), Enrique Fontanilles (Spain, 1951), Gilles Eduar (Brazil, b. 1958), Gisa Bustamante (Brazil, b.1963), Hannah Stewart (England, b. 1992), Jônio Bethônico (Brazil, b. 1972), NASK (Geneva, since 2012) by Nadja Zimmermann (Switzerland, b. 1980) and Skander Najar (Switzerland, b. 1973), Rodrigo Martins (Brazil, b. 1986).