I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears
Emilia Martin
Yogurt Editions
English
Hardcover
Edition of 700
124 pages
170 x 240 mm
2024
ISBN 9791298521100
“I find myself in the dusty basement of an impressive old house, filled with astronomy-related antiques and mysterious objects. I am meeting yet another meteorite collector who presents to me one cosmic rock after another. ‘This is a fragment of the bigger one that wiped out an entire forest in Siberia, can you imagine?’ he says excitedly. Some of them look no different than a common rock that can be found on the side of the road, some are a little more shiny, unusual-looking. They are compelling, but it is not their looks that fascinates me. It is their unique capability to carry stories which tell the history of human relationships with what is perceived as fiction and what as fact. While Western science has only acknowledged the existence of meteorites in the late 18th century, history is filled with countless mythologies that originate from firsthand witnesses. Several communities believed that meteorites were sent by an angered god, while others claimed it to be an act of the devil. Some even saw a meteorite as a miracle from the skies, sent to save those who were struggling. There are multiple accounts of a befallen cosmic rock becoming a place of worship, where communities gathered to grieve or to celebrate. One account speaks of a meteorite that was tied to the ground with an iron chain by those fearing that it may return to its cosmic origins. Other witnesses anointed their cosmic rock with oils and deemed it sacred, placing it inside a temple. Another account speaks of a community that powdered a meteorite and consumed it, based on their belief that it was medicine sent from the heavens. These accounts and mythologies woven throughout the centuries around the globe speak of the many lives that cosmic rocks had lived before their acknowledgement by modern science. Meteorites hold a great contradiction: they are firsthand witnesses of outer space, travellers from deep time, offering a glimpse into the origin of life on Earth. And yet, they are rock whom we attribute with passivity, confinement and silence, symbolising the inability to communicate or express. Through this lens we submit them to countless narratives while they forever guard their tales, for better or for worse.” – Emilia Martin
(Source: https://yogurtmagazine.com/prodotto/i-saw-a-tree-bearing-stones-in-the-place-of-apples-and-pears-by-emilia-martin/)
About the Artist
Emilia Martin is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague (NL) whose artistic practice is informed by growing up as the first generation of newly democratic nation, witnessing its process of formulating its narratives and iterations of its pasts. Rooted in the belief in the power of storytelling passed down with her ancestral heritage, Martin weaves narratives that challenge binary definitions of truth and fiction with the intersectional use of photography, writing, sound and sculpture. Through her artistic lens, she navigates the landscapes of oral storytelling, myths, legends and rituals, reflecting on their roles in forming and up-keeping societal structures and ways of relating to one another as well as those more-than-human. Having grown up in between two disparate realities: a remote farm of her grandmother in the rural East, and Silesia – a coal-mining urban region in the country’s industrial West, Martin’s formative years have been shaped by contradictions. Rural ecologies based on interdependencies set against the patriarchal oppression and extractivism, ancestral wisdoms, practices and crafts opposed to quick capitalist fixes, together formed a ground from which Martin approaches her research and making. Guided by the intersectional feminist discourse, she positions her practice as part of a bigger, living ecosystem.
https://www.emiliamartin.com/
(Source: https://www.emiliamartin.com/about.html)
About the Publisher
Yogurt Editions is an independent publishing house, which publishes books and their own concept-zine. They work on limited editions by artists working with new contemporary languages.
https://yogurtmagazine.com/
(Source: https://yogurtmagazine.com/editions/)
