'Inhabiting an Anthropocene'

Nature is the creator of everything. We were created by nature and we then created art. But can art be created by nature?

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Aleksova tested these questions through a method of rivers during July 2020 when she left three pieces of steel in three river locations around Kyustendil, Bulgaria. Each location had a personal significance to the artist as she identifies those areas as sentimental places where she had spent her childhood and adolescence.

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Within those locations Aleksova left one piece and left the metal to rust for three days in the river water. While this process was underway, she collected a water sample from each site and had it tested to find out what was in the water and how that might affect the rate of corrosion.

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Banshtitsa, which is the river that flows through the mountain and then through thee town centre of Kyustendil was tested in two locations – in the town centre and in the mountain. The results from those areas were extraordinarily different as the mountain location had clean water, compared to the town location whose water was polluted with chemicals, plastic and bio waste.

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Each piece was named after the precise coordinates of each location, mapping out the amount of pollution and lack of biodiversity.

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Aleksova has written more in depth about this project and how it affected her current path of art practice in her book ‘Building a response-able artistic practice in the Chthulucene’.