“Softened into marble, grew warm” is an artwork by Emilia Sølvsten that explores the often-invisible labour involved in marble extraction and production. Her starting point for this residency is at the Plyatres in Pyrgos Tinos, where women used to wash their laundry before the instalment of electricity in 1967. Rather than viewing marble as a symbol of power and wealth, the project frames it as a crucial construction material that used to support the daily rhythm and activities of the self-sufficient community of Pyrgos.
The project is divided into three stages: first, Sølvsten invited students from the School of Fine Art in Pyrgos to participate in a collective washing of the Plyatres, a traditional public laundry house, as a tribute to the maintenance of the architecture and the work done by the women of the village. Second, Sølvsten cast the traditional Greek green soap, Arkadi, into the negative space of the washing troughs. This soap, traditionally used for handwashing clothes and blankets, is also perfect for cleaning marble surfaces and is, until this day, the most popular. Additionally, she infused the soap with rust-containing earth and powder from the old stone sorting machine used in the Agios Eleftherios, creating an aesthetic and scent that reflects the essence of the quarry. The final stage involved cutting the soap into pieces, distributing it to the audience, and inviting them to participate in collective handwashing at the quarry.
“Softened into marble, grew warm” aims to challenge the traditional idea of sculpture as permanent and instead creates a work with a limited lifespan, reflecting the concept and idea behind this artwork. “Softened into marble, grew warm” is a motivation to activate and visit history and becomes a platform to investigate communal engagement.
CV
I work in the interdiv of performance, live installation, and sculpture. Utilizing influences and experiences from the performing arts, I explore movement and behavior related to the history and memory of my ancestors and their impact on our current social-political landscape.
My works depict the overlaps of tradition, mythology, and lifestyle, addressing how they are intertwined with the mediation and production of identity through new technologies and circulations of forms. Thus, my practice acts as a space for reflection on processes of transition, hybridisation and transformation, pushing these questions into material investigations of the ‘third culture kid’ and other intercultural or/and interpersonal issues. Embodying the entanglement of ‘everyday life’ and heritage, I challenge the physical boundaries of sculpture through sound, smell, vibrations, heat and movement, emphasizing the presence of history that may no longer have a physical body but still moves around and in us, defining our social constructions of today.
