3. Mineralia
Centre for Research Architecture/Natural History Museum, London, 2015
Mineralia is an audio accompaniment to the Natural History Museum’s mineral collection. This collaboratively composed sound work mimics and subverts the museum audio guide format in order to explore alternative ways of interacting with the display. Using the intimacy of a textured acoustic experience Mineralia gives space to the histories and politics of display, specific to the Natural History Museum, which have somehow escaped representation. The specimens on display in the mineral collection construct a geological history; the curated minerals present us with an archive that organises nature and science. In their vitrines the minerals lie motionless, dormant and quiet, yet held within are multiple histories and associations. How do we make audible the stories that are not present in these cabinets?
In the guise of a museum audio guide, Mineralia considers these spaces of silence to excavate the gallery’s unheard histories and stories. Working across documentary and field recording, together the audio tracks summon stories untold, present unfamiliar histories and create an alternative space of listening. A collaborative project with Stine Alling Jacobsen, Amelie Buchinger, Marco Dell’Oca, Phoebe Eustance, Eldar Gantz, Jess Gough, Hania Halabi, Thomas Jenkins, Susannah Jones, Yasemin Keskintepe, Siobhan Leddy, Ion Maleas, Pietro Pezzani, Grace Philips, Laurie Robins, Savitri Sastrawan, Sarah Shattock, Sam Stork, Alexandra Symons Sutcliffe.