Title: Mihai SOVÁIALÁ: LavaPublished by: Paper traffic, Bucharest
Release Date: 2024
Contributors: Mihai SOVÁIALÁ
Genre: photobook
Pages: 48
19500 HUF
In photographing Lanzarote, Mihai Șovăială guides us to meditate on the depth of the photographic image in relation to the geological idiosyncrasy of the island. Soon after the Timanfaya volcano erupted in 1706, the dismayed Lanzaroteños discovered that picón, the ejected black lapilli that had covered the most yielding lands, was sheltering plants underneath it. Its moisture-retaining and temperature-regulating properties allowed the inhabitants not only to return after the natural disaster but to thrive, as long as the layer of volcanic ash was shallow enough. Today, picón is also used to innovate construction and build sustainably. Expelled from its core, this rock settled on the face of the earth, to then become a shelter for life, human and plant alike, but on an even grander timeline of millions of years, it will most probably return to the bottom of the planet’s crust, only to become lava yet again.
Șovăială’s photographs take us on a journey through Lanzarote’s landscape, from the volcano as an unlikely symbol of a new beginning, to the resilient and vibrant cacti, and finally to the white homes built with volcanic rock. By observing their sharp rectangular shapes surrounded by the sinuous lines of the land, we might begin to notice too the construction behind the image. Our eyes following the lines, jumping between angles, between the geological time of the earth and the human present, might also take us further into the depth of the photograph.
Text by Laura Bivolaru
