Residenza dell’artista
Ankara, Turkey
2023
Ankara. Resin reflections for geographical derives and foreign scenarios
The exhibition Stones from the Sea, which will open at Ka on 24 November at 6.00 pm as part of the second edition of Dou Print Studio’s Litho Days in Turkey, takes its inspiration from the word lithos [λıθος], which means “stone” in its purest form. The origin of this word is the Ancient Greek λᾶς, which means “stone from the sea”. The lithographic stones, which were in the depths of the seas one hundred and fifty million years ago, and are only found in certain caves and quarries around the world, are limestones that keep the time of the earth. At times, albeit rarely, they contain imprints of microscopic sea creatures, crustaceans, and primitive forms of life.
In Timefulness, geologist Marcia Bjornerud describes her journey to the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean to study the layers of the earth. Bjornerud relates that in the legend at the bottom of a map of global time zones, this region was marked in gray, which denotes “No Official Time”. She is fascinated by the idea that there are places which “[resist] being shackled by measures of time—no minutes or hours, wholly exempt from the tyranny of a schedule.” The technique of lithography brings together the million-year natural history of stone with the traces made by artists on the stone in each printing. It invites the artist to stay with the stone, in a timelessness that has no official time. A good print requires knowledge of the stone and its reaction to ink, as well as simply waiting. In this process, the master printer, like a traveling companion, guides the artist on their journey of creation and relates the stone to them.