Elsa Salonen: Buni Buana (Hidden World)

Completion year: 2015

Technique: natural elements collected from Indonesia and colours distilled or ground from them, glass, transparent acrylic paint, LED lights

Size: 400x180x100 cm

For the installation various natural elements were collected in Java, Indonesia: rocks, plants, soil, volcanic ash as well as seashells and pieces of dead corals drifted ashore. From each element, a colour sample was distilled or ground onto a microscopic slide. In addition, images of nature spirits were painted on the slides with a transparent paint. These painted spirits, related to the animist worldview, become visible only through their shadows, in this way revealing a hidden layer of nature’s reality.

According to animism, every single plant, rock and tree is inhabited by an active agency, possibly even a spiritual consciousness, which has the right to live regardless of its instrumental utility to human needs.

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