Hiske Altena, Vital Mud, 2023

With the photographic project Vital Mud, Hiske Altena (NL) explores the theory that life on Earth began in clay. In the 1980s, his uncle, a now-retired geologist, found an unusual rattling stone. In this stone he discovered organic-looking structures that he could not explain with existing geological theories. However, the so-called “clay hypothesis,” according to which clay facilitated the evolution of early life forms, seems to offer a better explanation.

What might these early life forms have looked like? As large slimy tree-like structures or perhaps as giant floating zeppelin-like bubbles of gas? Rattle stones, clay crystals, the life cycle of bacteria, and large oval shapes in the American landscape are all possible evidence for the hypothesis that life originated in clay. Perhaps this also explains the similar shapes and descriptions that recur again and again in old fairy tales, myths and religious stories.

Vital Mud takes this theory as its starting point. It is the basis on which Altena builds a collection of images that changes our perspective, makes us look anew, and makes us question what man is capable of. It reminds us that science is a continuous search for the unknown and that perspective changes, just as it does in art.