As Geocreatures brings together artistic projects that, in their evocation, reinvention and updating of the connections between living matter and the mineral, invite us to see life through the lens of geology and contemplate how evolution has affected our planet.

As the earth sciences teach us, geological processes provided the landforms and matter favourable to the emergence of life. But living things, too, have played a role in shaping the earth’s crust through such processes as fossilization, bioerosion or organic sedimentation. Indeed, the reciprocal exchange between the living and the mineral points to a shared occupancy of the planet and an ongoing co-evolution. Quite simply, the biosphere cannot be envisaged without the geosphere, and vice versa.

Philosopher Jane Bennett sees us as “geo-creatures” who, composed of the same chemical elements as the earth, are deeply engaged in its transformation. From our remote mineral origins to the remnants of our civilizations that are destined to end up encased in rock, we are geology. In navigating the space between geosphere and biosphere, between the mineral and the living, we can begin to grasp our connection to the planet and draw on our strength, as geocreatures, to face the coming times.