Mineral Emissaries
Mineral Emissaries, Variscit, Kambalda, Western Australia, Terra Mineralia., Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars. Seeds and Souls, Charlottenborg 2023-2024.
Described through the reflection of Meik Brusch, Artist and Ethnologist
“When you talk about your work with stones and minerals from areas like Australia and Kongo, defining the stones and minerals are emissaries. It clicks with the rocks in the center of the image and the colorful background you made with paper. You talked about flags, but they look like how when we study foreign cultures and study groups, we study tribes, we find patterns in clothing, decorations, tattoos, and such. I just felt that the mineral with the color background that essentializes culture also has a visual language to some extent. Even though it is random and imaginary and improvised, working with contrast to the mineral and stones is what it did to me. I like that it metamorphosed the rocks into people in colorful, elaborate dresses. That’s what happened in my head when I looked at it. [...] There are these simple color pallets that just straightforwardly make people think, “oh, that is from there.” Here in the anthropogenic age, it is necessary to reflect on our civilization’s wild pursuit of resources. Therefore, Eistrup looks inward, downward, and close.
In collaboration with Freiberg University / Terra Mineralia collection, she photographed Australian minerals and conducted interviews with the researchers. She was preoccupied with the paradigm shift. The subsoil and caves go from being sacred places of deep reflection, closely linked to life and death - becoming a scene of material predation and an increasingly intense European hunt for precious metals and stones, which later plagues the colonies. The Erzgebirge area has many centuries of mining tradition, and the hope is to get the local audience interested in the story. During the Research and Development phase of this project, in Leipzig’s residency, Eistrup has perpetuated her research from her past project, In the Deep Underground and Up Above, and developed Mineral Emissaries. Eistrup has collaborated with the Terra Mineralia Institute, Freiberg. In the Deep Underground and Up Above, it considers the sharp cultural contrasts and ethical conflicts innate between history, land, and natural resources, as they relate to the South West region of Western Australia. This work considers the contemporary differences in the lived realities of Aboriginal Australians and the descendants of European settlers. The initial project was commissioned by IAS, under the project Spaced 3, supported by the Danish Arts Council and the City of Busselton. In collaboration with partner, Terra Mineralia, Mineral Emissaries will uncover, the more profound layers attached to being in Caves and the experience connected to the momentariness and slowing down. The cave is a meeting place for all types of persons and perspectives—a momentary escape into another world where all life forms decelerate. The conceptual background is one that scientists at the Bergakademie - are well vigilant of and engaged in: For so many years, we instructed the paramount of magnification, productivity, and economic capital. Now this way of living is leading us to an ecological disaster. We need to transmute our entire notion and alter our habits to support another form of the mind’s progress. Here, we should look to cultures that have lived in cohesion with the land for some of the answers. This reflection will require thinking about our historical and colonial past, which has eradicated many of the Indigenous cultures. Eistrup looks to the wisdom inherent in some of these cultures. Concurrently, she believes that those who live researching and studying stones and caves have a great deal of knowledge and understanding to share with others. These perspectives are some of those that she encountered through interviews with scientists.
6 Mineral Emissaries, Seeds and Souls, Curated by Christine Eyene, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 280 cm x 2,5 cm, Rectangle, W85,9 H59,9 D13,5,118 cm x 2,5 cm, Ellipse, W50,5 H103 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle Ø 75,7 D13,5, 50 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle, Ø 75,7 D13,5, 90 cm x 2,5 cm, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Rectangle, W64,2 H118,2 D13,5, 118 cm x 2,5
6 Mineral Emissaries, Seeds and Souls, Curated by Christine Eyene, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 280 cm x 2,5 cm, Rectangle, W85,9 H59,9 D13,5,118 cm x 2,5 cm, Ellipse, W50,5 H103 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle Ø 75,7 D13,5, 50 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle, Ø 75,7 D13,5, 90 cm x 2,5 cm, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Rectangle, W64,2 H118,2 D13,5, 118 cm x 2,5
6 Mineral Emissaries, Seeds and Souls, Curated by Christine Eyene, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 280 cm x 2,5 cm, Rectangle, W85,9 H59,9 D13,5,118 cm x 2,5 cm, Ellipse, W50,5 H103 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle Ø 75,7 D13,5, 50 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle, Ø 75,7 D13,5, 90 cm x 2,5 cm, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Rectangle, W64,2 H118,2 D13,5, 118 cm x 2,5
6 Mineral Emissaries, Seeds and Souls, Curated by Christine Eyene, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 280 cm x 2,5 cm, Rectangle, W85,9 H59,9 D13,5,118 cm x 2,5 cm, Ellipse, W50,5 H103 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle Ø 75,7 D13,5, 50 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Circle, Ø 75,7 D13,5, 90 cm x 2,5 cm, Small Circle, Ø 55,9 D13,5, 170 cm x 2,5 cm, Large Rectangle, W64,2 H118,2 D13,5, 118 cm x 2,5 cm.
Mineral Emissaries, Edelopal, Terra Mineralia 2020.
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Mineral Emissaries, Variscit Quartz-chrysopras Milgun station Western Australia Collection Pohl, Terra Mineralia 2020.
Mineral Emissaries, Flaked Stone Tool, Grassi Museum 2020.
Mineral Emissaries, Edelopal, Wordless — Falling Silent Loudly, Curated by Barbara Höffer and Léontine Meijer van Mensch, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures. Terra Mineralia 2020
Mineral Emissaries, Variscit, Kambalda, Western Australia, Terra Mineralia., Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures.Wordless — Falling Silent Loudly, Curated by Barbara Höffer and Léontine Meijer van Mensch, Japanisches Palais, Dresden, 2021.
Mineral Emissaries, s, Quartz-Rauchquartz-Sident Tasmanien, Australia, Terra Mineralia 2020.Wordless — Falling Silent Loudly, Curated by Barbara Höffer and Léontine Meijer van Mensch, Lightboxes, Enameled Wood, Metal Bars, and Fixtures.
Can you see the cave’s entrance? Isn’t it breathtaking!
Does it alarm you?
What do you know about the cave and what is in there?
We can tell - that you’re scared since you don’t know what the grotto retains.
Come ye; please come.
The cave is secure and aged.
It is cool and seductive, and we entered it many a time.
It cradles our being from all life above—Its energy stem from another sort
of existence.
The more I stay in the cave, the more I understand - that this is an old place.
And yet, I have to accept that I will never really comprehend - how ancient it is.
The fragrance of the cave is unique; the air is heavy in my lungs.
I spend months upon months and years in the cave. And as the seasons change above, I can sense these changes down in this place.
When the lights turn off, I can’t explain how dark it truly is. [...]