What survives from Earth: the material in the work of Mitch Iburg and Nina Salsotto Cassina

Abstract

Visual artists Mitch Iburg and Nina Salsotto Cassina created their body of work from a very close relationship with the materials of the physical environment: they use wild clay and other materials encountered to produce ceramic pieces that tell us a bit about the geological history of planet Earth. Based on the analysis of their work, I suggest a dialogue with the writings of the British anthropologist Tim Ingold, on his notion of “material”, and the French philosopher of art Georges Didi-Huberman, on the concept of “survivance”. If the material lacks immutable properties – but has procedural and relational ones – and, therefore, is within a temporal flow – possessing trajectories of becoming – then the artist’s work is similar to the work of nature. Any separation between culture and nature must therefore be put to the test. Close examination of the materials – the things that things are made of – is addressed as a strategy for us to take root in the world, ushering in new ways of approaching temporality in the history of art.