"My ABC is elementary"
September 28th until November 6th
A presentation by visual artist Ignacio Acosta and Stella Carlsen (Corporate Sustainability, Kunstgiesserei St.Gallen)
This week's guests at the Sitterwerk Foundation are Ignacio Acosta und Stella Carlsen. As part of the three-part series "My ABC is…", they are rearranging the Kunstbibliothek library collection and Werkstoffarchiv material archive, creating new categories, references and compilations, offering insights into their areas of research.
They are devoted to understanding the element of copper and its occurrence in the library and material collection. The artist and researcher Ignacio Acosta explores territories under pressure from extractive industries. With his work "Copper Geographies" for example, he has traced the route and life cycles of copper, using different media to document the transformed landscapes of the Atacama desert in Chile where the material is mined, and the City of London, where the material is traded. Stella Carlsen is responsible for the topic of sustainable management at Kunstgiesserei St.Gallen and, among other things, engages with questions around the origin and extraction of the materials used, some of which can be found in the collection of the Werkstoffarchiv. Together with Ignacio Acosta she is invited to search through the library and materials collection from their respective perspectives and to relate the material copper to the subjects of art production and sustainability.
On September 28th, their findings, references and insights will be presented in a public discussion. Their display will remain in the Werkstoffarchiv and Kunstbibliothek until November 6th.
This event is connected with the current exhibitions "Into the Deep: Mines of the Future" at the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, Germany and "Mining Photography" at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur.
The workshop series is supported by Kanton St.Gallen Kulturförderung / Swisslos, Stiftung Temperatio, TISCA Tischhauser Stiftung
Bronze sculpture, Der Xantener Knabe, Art Foundry St.Gallen, 2023