Hearth of the Earth

Centered on alchemic and metallurgic practices, Hearth of the Earth highlights the mutual exchanges occurring between body, minerals and land. As part of their talk at Parse Journal, University of Gothenburg, Ayesha reads Hearth of the Earth to a backround of wandering through their sonic and visual archive, documenting moments of being hypnotised and changed by metal. 

This ongoing project uses alchemy to merge craft, mysticsim and philosophy to speculate on
relationships between metal, the body and the planetary systems that sustain them. As a jeweller working within the long shadow of extractive histories, I asked: In what ways is our connection to land and minerals burnt, served and institutionalised? And how might these more intimate ecologies of minerals and the body be traced?
What desired lines, codes and rituals are enacted and found again when one encounters minerals, amidst currents of change and collapse? (Ama.J.Burgess)

The essay was spoken over a shifting image archive to a background of field recordings merging recordings of metal workshops in the UK, labour songs of resistance from the film The Life and Death of Shankar Guha Niyogi the leader of the struggle of steel workers in Odishia and recordings from my time in India learning about metal practices in 2023. 

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