Vibeke Mascini

We set out late, because we had snow to dissolve for breakfast.
2016

Ultra chrome print on Canson Platine paper, maple frame with museum glass
Certificate includes the artist's report of the expedition and performance
47 x 70 cm (framed: 49,6 x 72,6 x 3,4 cm)
Edition of 5 plus 2 AP
Eu 2.400 (excluding VAT and shipping)

Vibeke Mascini
Born in 1989, The Hague, the Netherlands
Lives and works in The Hague, the Netherlands

Vibeke Mascini’s work studies situations in which systems falter and the rules fail. She probes formal definitions recorded in declarations and objects on the basis of science, landscape and language. She infiltrates contemporary systems using interventions, installations and texts, thereby contributing alternative ideas.

In 1787, geologist and natural scientist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure took the top of the Mont Blanc with him after the first scientific expedition there. The pyramid-shaped piece of granite is now at the Teylersmuseum in Haarlem (NL), 3.2 meters above sea level. One of the things De Saussure wanted to precisely determine was Mont Blanc’s exact height; he also wanted to catalogue the blue skies on the mountain.

Fascinated by Mont Blanc’s siren song, Mascini’s project Cloud Inverse followed in the earliest footsteps to the summit. During the climb she studied historic sources. Stories handed down from generation to generation mixed with personal reports and images. Cloud Inverse is an experimental travelogue that examines footprints and footnotes whilst simultaneously questioning a human history of counter-gravity.

The Mer de Glace (sea of ice) is a 12 km-long glacier that runs down from the highest summit in the Alps. At an altitude of 3,600 meters above sea level, Mascini collected so-called perpetual snow from the glacier, which can only be found in specific geographic locations where it remains frozen year-round. She then travelled to the coast, carrying the snow with her in an insulated flask, using refrigerators at petrol stations and cafes along the way to keep the snow frozen at all times. There, at sea level she let the snow melt in the warmth of her hands.

We set out late, because we had snow to dissolve for breakfast. is a photographic record of the performance. The title is a - literally translated - line from Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's logbook.