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Water, Earth, Fire and Air

Toni Bover i Toni Casassas. Memorare. 1993-1994
Toni Bover i Toni Casassas. Memorare. 1993-1994

Memorare is a project that was conceived around a winter solstice and concluded on a summer solstice. Photographs were taken of water (the stream), earth (the stones piled upon one another or the earth supporting the trees), and plentiful air (with clouds that changed daily, shaped by the direction and strength of the wind). We decided that Memorare would not continue. We burned some of the works during the Art and Fire event, which occurred in Vic in 1994 for the midsummer festivities (1).

Upon revisiting the project a few years later, the four elements (2) of classic philosophy can be identified in the photographs. When we took the pictures, we had no awareness that we were engaging with these elements of classical culture. Nevertheless, we realised we were expressing our inner gaze through our outer gaze.

Keywords

Clouds Inner gaze Memorare

References

Texts

  • 1. DESCOBRIR el teu país com mai l’has vist [en línia]. Festes de Sant Joan. Disponible a: < https://www.descobrir.cat/ca/sant-joan.php > (Data Consulta: 5 de novembre de 2023)
  • 2. Ferrater, J. (1971) . Diccionario de la Filosofía. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. P. 507.
    “El número y cualidad de los elementos considerados com “partes constitutivas” de las realidades naturales ha variado mucho. En los sistemas de la filosofía india se habla a veces de cuatro elementos o buthas (tierra, agua, fuego, aire,…) ”. “Se debe a Empédocles la formulación más precisa de la llamada “doctrina de los cuatro elementos” (tierra, agua, fuego, aire; o, mejor “lo sólido”, “lo líquido”, “lo seco”, “lo gaseoso”), de tan persistente influencia en la Antigüedad y Edad Media y hasta principios de la época moderna”.

Images

  • A photograph of a stream in Castell de l'Areny (Berguedà); detail of a land art installation by Toni Casassas; One of the trees that hung from the columns of the Roman temple during the exhibition and one of the pieces of Memorare that burned in Sant Joan bonfire; a photograph of a cloud on an esplanade in Castell de l'Areny (Berguedà)
    Toni Bover and Toni Casassas, Photographs Project Memorare. Berguedà and Vic. 1993-1994.