Marit Mihklepp

“In every part of every living thing
is stuff that once was rock.”
Lorine Niedecker

As she explores the invisible and indivisible links between “living” and “non-living,” Estonian artist Marit Mihklepp borrows a holistic vision of being in order to expose the inextricability of the body from the world around it. Aware of the complacency of a presumed border between human and non-human, between subject and object, Marit comes up with new methodologies or modes of communication in order to provide us with access to these worlds that, for lack of better comprehension, continue to be interpreted as foreign to us. Microbial flora, everyday objects, rocks, and single-cell organisms – each of these entities is part of who we are. Rehabilitating poly-sensoriality and an attentive presence of the body, Marit seeks to reactivate the potential for agency of these forms of existence that are too often devalued by narcissistic anthropomorphism.

During her exploratory stay at Est-Nord-Est, Marit dwelled more particularly on geological time and its sound traces, which might be inscribed in stone, similar to the traces in animal or plant fossils. Mute, as they are inaudible to the human ear, these auditory imprints would bear witness to an otherwise imperceptible terrestrial history and give access, in a way, to our own history. Isn’t the human body, Marit noted, also composed of rock – our bones made of minerals, our blood of iron, phosphorus, and sodium? In the studio, dozens of rocks were strewn on the ground and some were suspended in the air, swaying in the space as Marit set them in motion. So, she spent two months with these stones, carefully handling them, even making them vibrate, each possessing its own vitality. Returning a voice to these elements made aphasic by the deafening discourse of “real” science, Marit set out to listen to stone and let herself be inhabited it – in short, to try to grasp the ungraspable.

This interest in the imperceptible, far from being incidental or pointless, goes beyond art practice to suggest new, more ethical, fairer collaborations with the environment. Without claiming to be a philosopher, in her work Marit no doubt touches upon questions of the ontology of being and our place in the world.