Being Present with Stone – pointers for a relational practice
If we accept an animist understanding of the world; that there are more-than-human persons brimming with agency all around us, what consequences does this have for the way we act and make decisions? What responsibilities are we called to and how does this invite us to move differently through the world? By extension, how do we think-with these other beings, so physically and cognitively different from ourselves? Can we find a shared language?
The artistic research I am conducting takes as its starting point a relationship I have with a stone. It is an unassuming stone, about the size of a human curled up. The stone sits in the middle of a clearing of an old farmstead in Norway that I have been visiting all my life. It is only in the last years, however, that I really started noticing the stone.
Many places in Scandinavia have traditionally had a “special stone”. We see hints towards their significance in the Viking age rune stones or the sacrificial stones of Sápmi, but Southern Norwegian stone culture has largely been forgotten. Accounts suggest, however, that also here (some) stones were treated as more-than-human “persons”. This presentation will present the artistic research I have done with regards to these animist stone customs, as well as the process (artistic and otherwise) I have gone through to build relations with this lithic being.
The Yard Stone (summer excerpt), 13 mins, 2025
An attentive observation of a place – an old homestead in mid-Norway – as it moves through the seasons. A portrait of a human, who has been coming there all her life, and a stone, who has always been there, and which she is attempting to come into closer relation with. This is an excerpt from a longer film which consists of four seasonal chapters.
Bio
Úna Hamilton Helle, she/her (Norway/UK) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and museum worker currently completing an artistic research PhD in the ERC-funded Thinking Deep team in Royal Holloway University’s Geography Department.
As an artist and researcher she uses sound, video, artist-made publications and participatory workshops to explore questions around ecology, place, belonging and interspecies communication.
Her most recent exhibition was with Bloc Projects (Sheffield, UK). She is also behind Becoming the Forest, a publication, event series and wider art project about the intersections of black metal and ecology.
As a curator with Legion Projects she has curated the touring exhibition Waking the Witch and edited a monograph about the visionary artist Monica Sjöö’s work. www.unahamiltonhelle.co.uk
The artistic research I am conducting takes as its starting point a relationship I have with a stone. It is an unassuming stone, about the size of a human curled up. The stone sits in the middle of a clearing of an old farmstead in Norway that I have been visiting all my life. It is only in the last years, however, that I really started noticing the stone.
Many places in Scandinavia have traditionally had a “special stone”. We see hints towards their significance in the Viking age rune stones or the sacrificial stones of Sápmi, but Southern Norwegian stone culture has largely been forgotten. Accounts suggest, however, that also here (some) stones were treated as more-than-human “persons”. This presentation will present the artistic research I have done with regards to these animist stone customs, as well as the process (artistic and otherwise) I have gone through to build relations with this lithic being.
The Yard Stone (summer excerpt), 13 mins, 2025
An attentive observation of a place – an old homestead in mid-Norway – as it moves through the seasons. A portrait of a human, who has been coming there all her life, and a stone, who has always been there, and which she is attempting to come into closer relation with. This is an excerpt from a longer film which consists of four seasonal chapters.
Bio
Úna Hamilton Helle, she/her (Norway/UK) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and museum worker currently completing an artistic research PhD in the ERC-funded Thinking Deep team in Royal Holloway University’s Geography Department.
As an artist and researcher she uses sound, video, artist-made publications and participatory workshops to explore questions around ecology, place, belonging and interspecies communication.
Her most recent exhibition was with Bloc Projects (Sheffield, UK). She is also behind Becoming the Forest, a publication, event series and wider art project about the intersections of black metal and ecology.
As a curator with Legion Projects she has curated the touring exhibition Waking the Witch and edited a monograph about the visionary artist Monica Sjöö’s work. www.unahamiltonhelle.co.uk