Finnish artist Elsa Salonen examines our relationship to nature in a
poetic manner. Salonen's works emerge out of her artistic interpretation
of ancient alchemical knowledge. In her art, she activates animist
rituals and magic practices once believed to have been lost, asking
questions about our relationship to the environment. A profound act of
listening to the world is made available to us as "stories told by
stones," an enrichment of the millennia-long encounter between humans
and stones and a record of the transformation from stones into pigments
and from pigments into art. The respectful relationship of the artist to
the stones transforms our own encounter into an audience with some of
our oldest kin. This is animism at its most life- and world-affirming.