Rossella Biscotti

Rossella Biscotti's installation brings a sense of wonder to elements washed up on the beach that reflect the light in a special way; pools of water, pools of oil or light-colored jellyfish that seem to melt into the light and sand. Biscotti's installation was made by melting and re-hardening glass. It is primarily an investigation of materials, their interaction with other materials, pollution and corruption and their aesthetic qualities.

In her investigation of transformations and physical changes of raw materials and their derivatives, production processes reverberate that occur in nature and span over a timeline of hundreds of millions of years, and have geologically shaped the earth. Crude oil, for example, appears as a beautiful yellowish-black liquid and was formed from the remains of microscopic plant and animal species in sea. Throughout their lives, the organisms absorbed sunlight, which they stored in their bodies in the form of carbon molecules, giving their remains special properties. The countless remains formed deposits on the seafloor, which were then buried under sand and stone, forming petroleum reservoirs, that are also present in the North Sea. It feels paradoxical that a resource formed in this way is today a driving force behind the global climate crisis.

The beach is the place par excellence where natural objects such as stone and sand take shape, through an interaction between minerals, water, wind and waves over millions of years. As humans, we bear witness to this legacy, in the form of shells, fossils and stones washed up on the shore as if it were a messaging board. The residues on the beach give an indication of the ecological well-being of the earth which becomes increasingly worrying. Like a magician of time, today the tide brings us a 25,000-year-old fossil, yesterday a shard from a Roman settlement in Bredene and tomorrow probably a load of plastic.

This beautiful installation had a brief life on the beach of Bredene, where the pieces were installed directly on the sand. Unfortunately, it was damaged shortly after the opening of Beaufort. To protect the pieces against further damage, we moved it to the Staf Versluys Centre and adapted the installation.

Stranded was made to be displayed on a beach. Yet we decided to display this new work to the public, in the hope that its beautiful details would give at least an idea of what the installation was like at its original location.