Reading Stones | Finissage

Reading Stones: Anne Krinsky | Carol Wyss | Susan Eyre

Finissage

Please join the artists for rock cakes, refreshments and readings on the last day of their takeover of the ancient St. Augustine’s Tower.  Take tea and search the tower for hidden texts, making use of magnifying ‘reading stones’ to assist in deciphering the miniscule fonts. Throw gemstones onto a lithomancy board and read the patterns that may hold a clue to your future.

 Reading Stones could be considered the first instruments used to create an enhanced sensory experience. Originally made from ground and polished rock crystal or beryl, they were placed over texts to magnify them. This early optical technology paved the way toward observation of the furthest reaches of the universe and its minutest components.

 The act of “reading stones” can refer to both the scientific practice of geological investigation and the ritual of lithomancy which seeks to interpret the patterns of stones cast by those wishing to divine the future. 

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Anne Krinsky, Carol Wyss and Susan Eyre present an exhibition of site-specific works in response to the history and architecture of Saint Augustine’s Tower. Through their respective interests in the land, the body and the cosmos, Krinsky, Wyss and Eyre explore relationships between time and materiality. Their exhibited works provide singular “readings” of phenomena such as the erosion of gravestones, (re)configurations of human bones and the cosmological orbits of rocky bodies by which we measure time. 

The nature of time itself was a concept that St Augustine of Hippo grappled with in his philosophical texts sixteen centuries ago and is still perplexing us today; namely, how to equate the subjective experience of time with an objective understanding.

Entry to this exhibition is free

Open on select days and times

Thurs 26 Sept, 6-9pm | private view

Fri 27 - Sun 29 Sept, 12-6pm

Thurs 3 Oct, 6-9pm | in partnership with Whitechapel First Thursdays

Fri 4 - Sat 5 Oct, 12-6pm

Sun 6 Oct, 12-6pm | finissage

Image: Ephemera Scrolls (excerpts) 2019, Anne Krinsky