Stories can set with time, just like rock

Press release
Stories can set with time, just like rock is the outcome of an exchange residency between Catania, Sicily (September 2015), and Edinburgh, Scotland (July 2017), involving artists Stephen Kavanagh and Marco Maria Giuseppe Scifo. Exploring the geological configuration of both cities – linked by the mutual presence and absence of a volcano at their foundations – the presentation at Five Years will display the artists’ research on the correlation between the notions of natural and man-made.

The volcano is a creative and destructive power that alters landscapes. By devouring the existing space, it generates a new one with its expelled lava and tephra. Mount Etna, a stratovolcano made of layers of hardened materials, still actively forms and devastates land, resulting in a inescapable influence on the city of Catania and its inhabitants. On the contrary, Edinburgh is built on the remnants of a volcanic field, whose strata were revealed by the moving of glaciers millions of years ago. The presence of the volcano is therefore exposed by its absence, its negative space, which shapes the history of the city as much as the rock that was left behind.
Stories can set with time, just like rock is curated by Amy E. Brown and Miriam La Rosa, and originates from a collaboration with BOCS Ltd.

Stephen Kavanagh is a Scottish artist who uses man-made materials such as concrete, resin and steel in the fabrication of maquettes that function as studies for larger installations. His research concerns nature and the built environment. Stephen is currently based in Edinburgh.
Marco Maria Giuseppe Scifo is an artist from Sicily whose work manifests as immersive, self-built installations, centred on ideas of the environment and mathematical constructs of both the natural and the unnatural. He uses drawing as a method of experimentation, preceding the making of actual works. Marco lives and works in Milan.