Tensions between natural and indigenous landscape ecologies and the contemporary impact of industrial processing are explored through this installation exhibited at the Mnemonic section of the Venice Biennale themed Laboratory of the Future. The Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavements hold the memory of environmental evolution through ancient glacial scouring from 300 million years ago, as well as artistic engravings made by indigenous communities from around 1500 years ago.

To conceptualise the making of the piece, the qualities of water are considered, where it is fluid, elusive and gentle, and yet its engagements with other materials can often violent with permanent effect, as with rock and paper alike. A paper atlas, made with fibre from local plant material, is pressed into the pavements, expressing geological and anthropological time in relief, with water as the active ingredient of memory and mark-making. Later, a layer of contemporary data is embossed into the sheets, highlighting the global drainage of freshwater in the industrial process of papermaking.

In Venice, sheets of paper are suspended in equilibrium, with sonic and cinematic supplementary material. The paper is again transformed by the humidity of Venice’s air, during its time of displaced tension.

Team: Craig McClenaghan, Wihan Hendrikz, Hugh Fraser

Curator: Lesley Lokko

Collaborators: Phumani Paper, Rena Maghundu, David Morris, eiletz ortigas | architects, JSpec Engineering

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