"In the letters written by Elisabeth of the Palatinate to Rene Descartes between 1643 and 1649, the young abbess challenges the praised philosopher and his rigid separation between mind and body: The mind must possess some qualities in addition to immaterial thinking that can affect the body, there must be some connector between them, known as the mind-body problem in later philosophical thinking. Both in content and historical context these letters are reflections of borders, limits and separation, of how things and ideas are moved and shaped, and what makes them do so or not.
Thus moved, I began tracing the story of Descartes’ skeleton, a story that starts in Stockholm — getting up too early in the morning to work for the queen of Sweden and the cold climate of the north meant the end of him. While the scull remained in private hands for centuries, getting signed by all its owners as it passed hands, the rest of his skeleton ended up back in Paris shortly after his death (except for some finger bones that were sold off as jewelry).
Still today the scull is physically separated from the rest of his remains, a weird echo of his own mind-body dualism, and the signatures on it contrasts the grand historical narrative of rational enlightenment and modernity. Rather they tell of prevailing beliefs of power contained within certain objects and the transference of these through possession or closeness (If you own Descartes scull you will also possess his mental traits).
During my stay at Cité internationale des arts in Paris, through the generous support of Ingrid Lindbäck Langaard’s foundation, I have included both the letters and the skeleton in my ongoing artistic research of current separations and borders, of insides and outsides, the soul and the power of transference contained in things and objects that goes past the rational and the quantifiable.
I will serve French cheese with caramelized pine cones from the Scandinavian forests, to commemorate Descartes’ fatal trip to Stockholm."
Stian Ådlandsvik (b. 1981, Bergen, Norway), holds a degree from the National Academy of Art Oslo, and the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. Upcoming solo presentations include P//////AKT, Amsterdam and Galleri K, Oslo. He lives and works in Oslo". He is in residence at the Cité internationale des arts through the Ingrid Lindbäck Langaards Foundation programme.
He presents this open studio in collaboration with Martine Poppe.