Throughout history, artists have been dependent on minerals to create works of art. The colours on a painted surface are made from pigments of mineral and plant origin, the contours and angles of sculptural works are the result of a hammer and chisel on stone, and the images on film come from a chemical reaction produced with light and silver bromide. Minerals are the raw material “behind” the artworks. They condition the works’ appearance even if the eye and the mind seek to erase them. In art history, the substantial contribution of materials has long been sidelined, even disregarded.¹ An entire Western metaphysics—based on the virtues of distance and the primacy of intention—partly explains this history, which contemporary artists have overturned and commented on, rejecting the division of form and content, and calling for renewed attention to the material elements and their expressive qualities.

This shift in perspective has foretold another. Appreciation of the physical qualities of minerals in art practices has put the complex stories and fascinating journeys of matter front and centre. Material formerly considered primarily to be sculpted or modelled, minerals have now become a major aspect of the work. Their properties influence the way we create, just as the colours, textures and shapes evoke narratives of extraction, migration or belonging to territories and landscapes in our memory and imagination. In this light, minerals can be regarded as a “vibrant matter,” to quote the American philosopher Jane Bennett:² they affect and permeate us. And this approach—though not

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