Earth.

Big word. We interpreted as both, planet and soil. Earth is where we live, where we breathe and grow every day, Earth is home.

The Rock Cycle - Extreme Earth

"From the geologically short perspective of a human lifetime, rocks and minerals may appear permanent and unchanging. But in reality old minerals and rocks are constantly breaking down and new rocks and minerals are being formed. What we see around us is a momentary snapshot of the point  rocks or minerals are now at the process called de "rock cycle"".

Earth is constantly changing, even though we can't really see it. What interest me the most is the ability for rocks to, with the right conditions, return to its initial state. Like Earth, we humans are constantly changing, but what if we could have the same ability to transform ourselves and become our initial state. In other words, to reborn and be aware and conscious about it. Would we be doing something different? Taking other directions and decisions, be more environmentally conscious perhaps? The butterfly effect came up to my mind.

C L A Y

One of the first words that popped when thinking about earth as a material. What is clay? Where can we find it? 

Craftmanship Alone is Not Enough - Duncan Hooson

It’s messy, temperamental and wonderful.
We line reservoirs and canals with it.
Bake, cook, drink and eat from it.
Defecate, piss, vomit, wash and bathe in it.
We create conceptual, decorative, visceral, lyrical art with it.
We make big architectural brick and tiled buildings.

We take apprenticeships, degrees, create narratives and graduate with it.
Simply touching clay stimulates the senses as fingertip channels of information flood the brain.
We can then start to understand and control it.
How much understanding does this take?
Years and years depending on the level of fascination with it.
Deeper knowledge just takes time.
It’s not a discipline for the impatient.

I remember reading the whole excerpt when I was applying to CSM. I remember reading it several times because it moved me the way the author is able to grasp what I couldn't. Clay is an important reason why I started to make art in the first place. When faced to the "simple" question: what is clay? I remember not being able to answer without a technical approach when in fact, one could simply say that clay is everything.

- Sleeping with Cannibals by Paul Raffaele -

"People rarely live to middle age." As van Enk writes, Korowai routinely fall to interclan conflicts; diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, elephantiasis and anemia, and what he calls "the khakhua complex." The Korowai have no knowledge of the deadly germs that infest their jungles, and so believe that mysterious deaths must be caused by khakhua, or witches who take on the form of men.

 "The khakhua eats the victim's insides while he sleeps," Boas explains, "replacing them with fireplace ash so the victim does not know he's being eaten. The khakhua finally kills the person by shooting a magical arrow into his heart." When a clan member dies, his or her male relatives and friends seize and kill the khakhua. "Usually, the [dying] victim whispers to his relatives the name of the man he knows is the khakhua," Boas says. "He may be from the same or another treehouse."

I ask Boas whether the Korowai eat people for any other reason or eat the bodies of enemies they've killed in battle. "Of course not," he replies, giving me a funny look. "We don't eat humans, we only eat khakhua."

I find quite interesting that this tribe does not conceive the idea of eating humans as an act of cannibalism. On the other hand, they respond to their practices with their believes of a magical creature living inside of human bodies. They claim that killing and eating them is an act of justice. Sort of a way to restore justice within their community.