PhD Exegesis
Stonesense: Towards Lithic Thinking, 2024
I began this exegesis with Ursula K. Le Guin’s poem, “The Marrow,” which calls for recognition of the mineral connection between body and stone. This poem acted as a catalyst for the formulation of the core methodology of this project, lithic thinking. Stonesense allows that we are mineral beings and hopes that this acknowledgement can shift our understanding of ourselves and the universe we live in. Lithic thinking is not just thinking about stones, rocks, and minerals, but, as Hugo Reinert suggests, is a way “to make space for other questions, other arrangements, other possibilities of existence.”(Reinert, “About a Stone,” 112.) How can we think with stone? What petric thoughts might we have?
This exegesis acts as sedimentation, in which layers of thought might settle with others (sedere), and this structure provokes the research questions that have guided the PhD thesis. I formulated four guiding queries: firstly, considering how lithic thinking manifests in art-making and opens worlding pathways; secondly, how we can make space for reimagining inorganic relationality; thirdly, in an art practice, what ‘techniques of relation’ extend Povinelli’s ‘carbon imaginary’; and finally, I considered what a lithic feminist approach to materiality entails. As I have engaged with the materials of my practice, I have reflected on their origins in the earth and the political and social constructions that have accompanied (and continue to accompany) them.
(Notes from the Conclusion, pg 316)
Sample page layouts from Stonesense
From things flow
With Charlotte Huddleston, Kate van der Drift, Kathryn Tulloch, Shelley Simpson and Teresa Peters.
From things flow is an openly relational project that thinks through things. It is an intentionally haptic engagement of thinking via the process of making, and it is made of acts of conceptual and ontological curiosity. Physically and speculatively engaging with material is a way to experiment, explore, and express something. It is also a way to be in communication with lively non-human bodies. Via the artists’ interest in materiality, processes, and temporality From things flow engages all of our senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, vision. It also has space for what lies beyond our human senses; for sitting with the potential in ontological indeterminacy to make space for conceptual creation. [Charlotte Huddleston, From things flow]
Held at RM in July 2021, From things flow was a collection of works, unravellings, experiences and events that queried the concept of agency both within and without our bodies.
The publication is supported through the RM publication and writing grants.
From things flow is available to purchase for $30. Please email shelley@shelleysimpson.co.nz to make an enquiry.
Alternatively, you can download a digital copy here. Please note that all copyright is held by the authors.
From things flow
Texts by Charlotte Huddleston, Kate van der Drift, Teresa Peters, Shelley Simpson and Kathryn Tulloch
Designed by Kalee Jackson
Soft cover
Published by From things flow with support from RM and CNZ, 2022
96 pages
ISBN 978-0-473-61831-5
Edition of 100
Printed at SOAR
Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
The Entities
Sarah Callesen and Shelley Simpson, with text by Luke Munn, 2018
Download the full pdf here (PDF)
Giant, Shelley Simpson, 2015
A PDF magazine accompanying a project about the Meremere power station. More information here
TEXTS
Wild Creations Residency, Art News, 2018 (PDF)