Histórias minerais extraordinárias: conferência performada, debates e projeto editorial

In a research at the Ethnographic Museum of Geneva, I came across documents kept by a geologist which addressed a topic that stood out from the entire content of his studies. Mainly, the topic led me to a whole new field for my own work. Seeking to understand the question that arose from an imagery of the spatial geology, I discovered two other fabulous collections, which provided reflections in this direction—a collection of supposed extraterrestrial sightings and contacts and a science fiction library. These collections were useful to expand the questions regarding the fictionalization of mineral activities and their matters, technologies, and personalities.

The work is a further development of works about mining created over several years. These works relate to history, in researches on the issue of labor, economics, and the visual memory of the mineral exploration, seeking to reveal layers of the imagery surrounding this activity. For this piece, I examine the mineral in the field of fiction; this project brings about a shift in perspective, not concerned with the terrestrial soil. The mineral fragment is, in this work, a result of invention, with attributed traits which nonetheless reflect the imagination surrounding the real exploration. If it is liberating to scan the skies and speculate sidereal geographic possibilities, on the other hand the invention reasserts colonial desires for exploration and domination.

I work with the creation of stories relating documents, collections, fictionalizing or performing the archive; historical elements are, thus, triggers subject to interpretation. Work processes and researched topics constitute pieces; I have been using the “voice” to create pieces, in the form of narrations with projected images forming conferences and debates, as well as writings and publications. Histórias Minerais Extraordinárias uses these formats or media as formal and circulation elements. The project is original and gathers materials and subjects from three collections in Switzerland for a narrative on memory and invention. The construction of a story, to be presented live, in addition to the editing of a video and exhibition, gives way to collaborations aiming at an editorial project.

The piece is built from the interpretation of collections of three personalities/characters. The “work” here results from a narrative reading linking references found in the collections, as well as an installation with photographs from the Billy Meier’s archive and a documentary about his background. The work runs through fictional fields related to mining.

Mabe Bethônico​ in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (June 2017)