ABOUT STONES, 2014,
a folder containing:
(1) 100x150mm photograph,
(2) an introduction,
(3) a pantoum in six stanzas (OF STONES AND LAND), [14] leaves, (all ill.),
(4) a short illustrated manual (PLANTING STONES)
(5) and an appendix;
24x34cm.,
Limited edition of 37 signed and numbered books,

more images on Street Road Artis's Space website

Around the world, societies can be found in which rocks are recognised and celebrated as extraordinary, as embodiments of some thing or idea beyond the stone of which they are made (Carolyn J Dean)

"About Stones" was produced for Street Road Artist's Space in Pennsylvania, USA. It has now been developed into an arts show, which can be visited March-September 2015. The show includes the contents of Pennsylvanian folder as well as two video installations.

"About Stones" explores ideas of memory and belonging inviting us to question the notions of truth and authenticity as part of one's defining identity in their relationship with ancestral land. The work is inspired by the system of myths surrounding material relationship between an immigrant and his home land, especially the connections between the soil and the stones from ancestral place and the feelings of belonging, identity and nostalgia in migrant communities.

While the work relies on a factual evidence from a number of significant studies in medicine, geology, archeology and anthropology, it draws no lines between truth and fiction; it is the approach that mirrors the processes in dislocated communities, where longing produces new social imaginaries from merged true and false discourse fragments they had left behind.

Pennsylvanian folder "About Stones" (above) contains a selection of documents as an introduction to the concept, the process and the verse of growing stones. The folio includes a pseudo-academic introduction, a slide-show, a visual poem and a manual, that reflect on the possibility of intentional cultivation of stones to relieve the symtoms of acculturative stress among diaspora.

Video installation "About Stones: Crossing" presents a metaphysical passage from an ancestral land into a new place of residence. The installation reflects on the role of home soil as an umbilical cord that roots identity: a long line of stones emerges from Pennsylvanian soil and continues across the walls and buildings into the projected world of beyond. The projection evokes the soft-focused realm of uncertainty in the new habitat, which is contrasted with the physical materiality of the stone line marking the ground.

"About Stones" is has also been published as a British Edition.