Stone Trees: Art Among Debris, Memory, and Re-Enchantment

Art Among Debris, Memory, and Re-Enchantment

Abstract

This article presents a reflection on the creative process that enabled the exhibition "Stone Trees," marked by the reuse of materials and the appreciation of everyday life as a source of aesthetic invention. The proposal is anchored in the notion of the everyday developed by Michel de Certeau (1994), which understands ordinary gestures, such as walking, collecting, and observing, as tactical practices of resistance and creation. By collecting stones, wires, and remnants of materials in the alleys of the Universitário neighborhood in Rio Branco (AC), drawing on cultures and subjective memories from mining regions in Minas Gerais, it transforms what is rejected into sensitive and poetic matter. This transformation also mobilizes the idea of involuntary memory proposed by Marcel Proust (2006), in which the senses, especially touch and sight, activate nonlinear memories and affections, often forgotten or dormant. Each piece created is, thus, a stitching together of times and spaces, fragments, and subjectivities. The proposal was presented to the public in two exhibitions held at Parque Tucumã in Rio Branco, Acre, on May 22, 2025, and at the Association of Professors of the Federal University of Acre (UFAC) on June 10, 2025, with works accessible between R$ 10.00 and R$ 30.00. Thus, the commitment to inclusive and sensitive art is reaffirmed. More than aesthetic objects, the stone trees constitute forms of re-enchantment of the world from what has been discarded.