Excavations & (re)collections
Exibition text by Alice Motte-Muñoz, artist and art historian, March 2022Notes of a Journey. On Matter, Extractivism, and Displacement.
Collaboration between artists Marisa Ferreira and Carmen Mariscal
Galeria Presença
Three, the amount of syllables in the artist’s name, and in Lithium.
Three, the atomic number of lithium.
Three, the number of rooms in this exhibition.
Three, the number of words in the area called Covas de Barroso, where Marisa investigates how the wasteland illustrates both destruction and potential for creation.
Three, the support points one needs when ascending or descending.
Three, the number of colours that Marisa uses in some of her sculptures.
Marisa’s art encompasses here her investigation, both objective and subjective, of lithium. Her sculptures present a fascinating dichotomy as she aims to show us the impact of lithium mineral extraction, whether in a destructive way with both nature and humans, and the positive ways in which it can be recycled and used again as a sustainable longterm solution. Furthermore, they offer insights into the artist’s questioning of her country’s colonial past.
These works encompass our senses: inspired by drilling jars and mining rotors, they emerge from the crust of the earth, yet also look like rockets, ready to take the viewer to the next levels. The visitor looks at the same time at the skies above, and our future, whilst observing our past, and the consequences of our actions, on the ground. These powerful sculptures demonstrate the artist’s skills in quiet contemplation and powerful calls to action, as they seem to float out of the soil they were inspired from. Noting that only 9% of the global industrial waste is recycled, with much of it sent to previous colonies, Marisa’s sculptural emblems are strong reminders of the ecological crisis we are facing, but also harbingers of hope.
The names of the rooms are verbs, synonymous with action. “Surveying”, “Digging” and “Memorializing” evoke an anthropological gaze. The geometry of many of the straight lines in the sculptures dances around the sheerness of the materials used. Whilst some of the works are based on technical drawings of drilling jars, architectural universes on their own, others refer to the movement of piercing into the earth.
Marisa’s practice take a concentric approach, creating maps of physical materials as well as diagrams of collections and re-collections. She also focus partly on the crust of the earth, seeing how wounds emanating allows them to look both at the past and future, in a powerful and delicate way.
Alice Motte-Muñoz is a Filipina-French artist who studied at the Royal College of Art obtaining her Masters of Research, Fine Arts & Humanities in 2020. She also received a BA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2005 and Postgraduate Diploma in the Classical and Decorative Arts of Asia at the British Museum in 2006.
