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In the sage telestic waters... I see...

2016 - ongoing

water-cast aluminum for molybdomancy,
dimensions variable and reconfigured each time shown

installation views:
as floor pieces in Everywhere Possible Therefore True, Nickle Galleries, 2017
as hanging mobile in the group exhibition To talk to the worms and stars, The New Gallery, 2017
as hanging pieces in When Either But Not Both Are True, Blackwood Gallery, 2018
as hanging & floor pieces in Another Name for Everywhere, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, 2016/2017

"The practice of molybdomancy—a sort of residue of alchemical inquiry that originated in Ancient Greece—has persisted through millennia in the careful and resolute hands of wise women, and now exists in varied forms in Nordic and Central Europe, and Turkey. Traditionally invoked on New Year’s Eve, molybdomancy is a means of divining by pouring molten metal into cool water, resulting in the quick solidifying of the alloy into forms that are then interpreted, either directly or via the shadows they cast. Calgary artist Miruna Dragan’s In the sage telestic waters… I see… (2016–) is a large-scale exercise of such divination; the artist dropped substantial quantities of liquid aluminum into vats of cold water to create stalactite- and stalagmite-like structures. These forms are malleable in that they can be arranged in innumerable permutations; light and shadow are translated into meaning and fortune, molten metal into objects of preternatural significance..."

--- Natasha Chaykowski, Canadian Art Magazine, Summer 2018 issue on Translation

photos: D. Brown, N.K Westman, M. Dragan

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