The Sea Salt Series: Groundless (Part I)

‘The Sea Salt Series’ explores the role that salt has had in the history of humankind. Symbol of power, the history of salt is a history of wars, religion, economy. Known since the Neolithic, the use of salt marked a turning point in the history of humankind when humans started to use it to preserve food. In ‘Dark Ecology’, Timothy Morton introduces ‘agrilogistics’, ‘the machine that is agriculture as such’, identifying with agriculture the moment in which humans have made the separation between the human and the non-human world. He considers ‘agrilogistics’ the first structure that has slowly brought us to the development of the condition of the Anthropocene. Did salt speed up the transition from humans-as-hunters to humans-as-farmers, playing a crucial role in the development of agriculture? Could something as trivial as salt be considered one of the elements that have contributed to the ecological crisis that we are facing nowadays?

‘Groundless’, the first part of the Salt series, comes into being as a result of a trip along ‘ the road of salt’ in Sicily, Italy. The exhibition explores transition as a condition for potentiality, as a moment of doubt, rupture, and change which can grow a new self-awareness through being open to new encounters. ‘Groundless’ highlights the importance of salt in the history of humankind but it also invites the viewer to look at it as a metaphorical example of transition and potentiality for the future. If there is any possibility to stem the capital system- and the consequent civilization crisis that it has brought- through finding a new connection within the Earth, can this new connection be found through a different use of food?
Installation- medium: 50 tiles (glass wax, Sculpey clay), sea salt(800kg, recycled after use) , unrefined sea salt chunks from Marsala, rake, 2 HD videos, sound, durational performance. Performer: Giuseppe Vincent Giampino.