Cecilia Jonsson – Prospecting: A Geological Survey of Greys

Prospecting: A Geological Survey of Greys is an interdisciplinary, site-specific art project that appropriates the scientific geological methods of extracting, analysing and categorising mineral specimens. In doing so, the project addresses the distinctions between objective scientific methods and subjective influences. The work is set in Prestefjellet, in the Sør-Varanger Municipality, just outside Kirkenes. Here a thick foundation of ancient basement rock is explored with the help of diamond core drills that can penetrate as deep as 150 metres. The work consists of drilling residue, fragments from inside the ancient rock, which are no longer commercially viable. These residues serve to identify the bedrock’s various grey tones and visualise a temporary juxtaposition; a massive cylindrical column of rock core sample shadowed by its negative – the adjacent 5-centimetre-wide hole in the basement rock. The journey to the work is accompanied by a new sound piece composed by Peter Meanwell. It features the artist in conversation about her engagement with the landscape around Kirkenes, the geological formation that lie beneath our feet, and the physical processes of creating the installation. A soundtrack of field recordings of the surrounding area and the technology used to create the art work, metaphorically drills in to the bedrock of the artist's thinking and the creation of the work. Commissioned by Sonic Acts and Hilde Methi for Dark Ecology. Supported by, Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Visual Artists Association (NBK) and Bergen Municipality. Realised in collaboration with The Geological Survey of Norway (NGU). Warm thanks go out to Øystein Nordgulen at NGU and Roy Karlsen at Arctic Drilling for their advice and support. Cecilia Jonsson (SE) is an interdisciplinary artist living in Bergen in Norway. Informed by methods used in the natural sciences, she explores tensions between the mineral domain and living entities as both a method for observation and as a medium. Jonsson’s projects are developed as investigations of the physical and ideological properties of the raw materials that are fundamental to human existence, from their origins deep in the ground, to their extraction, transformation and global exploitation. Central to her practice is the drawing out of the poetic from the connections between sciences, environmental politics, technology, materials and aesthetics. www.ceciliajonsson.com

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