In the book "The History of the World", author J.M. Roberts emphasizes that for the vast majority of ancient cultures, people prepared every day to die appropriately (1). This state of being attentive to death somehow gave their lives another meaning: living less frantically, more calmly. As a society, we have grown accustomed to not naming death because, in some way, we believe that if we do not name it, it does not exist. However, naming death is also naming life.
"A year on the Salève" aims to address what Roberts pointed out: learning to live in conscious observation and allowing myself to be transformed by life itself without resisting change. For a while, I lived facing the Salève; it was part of my daily landscape. A strange landscape for me, coming from the Caribbean coast of Colombia. A distant landscape, but one that invited me to discover it day after day. I wanted to understand its topography, its plants, at what time of year moss grew. The seasons remained a mystery to me: the tree that dies and is reborn, the snow that turns into water. Amidst the loneliness that comes with uprooting, the Salève became my companion, my solace, and my source of inspiration. This work stems from a desire for understanding and gratitude towards a mountain that accompanied my deepest solitudes. It documented my encounter with motherhood, my gestation, and the birth of my child.
Throughout the entire year of 2018, I conducted a daily exercise in observation. The project's structure was the same each day: I took a photo and meditated with open eyes for 11 minutes to be attentive to every gesture, movement, and transition, thus approaching the essence of the Salève. After this initial observation stage, I continued with writing: I wrote a long haiku and narrated the passage of time. These texts also captured the progression of my emotional life, the colors of stationary birds, the sound of the air, the scent... I did this every day. Finally, it was also a year of gathering material during which I collected plants, trash, and stones. I sculpted mosses I gathered into sculptures and dehydrated them for posterity. With great care and respect, I immortalized life on the Salève.
In 2019, I returned to live in Colombia. In 2023, life brought me back to Haute-Savoie, this time to live in Annecy. Throughout 2023 and the first half of 2024, I dedicated myself to cataloging and organizing the project. It was during this time that I decided to incorporate thread as a symbol that ties together time; I needed to bind all these years concretely. These photos, products of past work, were intervened by me—I embroidered them, painted them, and allowed myself to make the Salève mine. This project encompasses several techniques: photography, writing, painting, pressed and dehydrated flowers, and embroidery. It also includes an herbarium and a historical document, a record of the state of the Salève in 2018.
(1) History of the world. J. M. Roberts. The New Penguin History of the World. 2010. Random House Mondadori S.A. Barcelona.
Title of the artwork: A year on the Salève
Work composed of: 369 pieces
Technique: Digital photography, acrylic, colored pencils, charcoal, thread, embroidery, writing, pressed and dehydrated flowers
Dimensions: Ranging from 10x10 to 200x110 centimeters
Location: Collonges Sous-Salève, France
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