Rite of Passage

Artist: sebastien robert 

Tuesday, May 25 14:00 pm - 16:00 pm

In this artistic talk, Sébastien will present his latest installation "Rite of Passage", initiated during a residency in Chile in 2019.

In the Chilean region of La Araucanía, Mapuche ancestral rituals are under threat due to drastic changes caused by climate change, land expropriation and logging in the ecosystem in which they have lived harmoniously for thousands of years. As the landscape disappears, so does their advanced knowledge of the natural world.

Rite of Passage» studies the influence of the Kultrun -a Mapuche drum- in the crystallization of the resin of the araucana araucana -a Mapuche sacred tree considered a living fossil- and explores the possibilities of preserving their ancestral rhythms in that environment.

With his installation, Sébastien brings the rhythms of the drum into the resin and documents their influence on the formation of crystals. For this he uses a technique called sensitive crystallization, which allows to reveal pictorially the formative forces of any organic material.