Modern Promethean Bling Thing

“The exhibition Tales Of Hyperborea makes no grand claims about the superiority of an experiential approach over an objective scientific approach and vice versa. de Fouw is more interested in their confluence and seepage, in finding a way to draw a connection between them. This is seen clearly in the mica waste covered cloak of Modern Promethean Bling Thing (2022) – which is made up of a fire blanket with thousands of pieces of mica industrial waste stitched into it. Traditionally used as stove glass, mica, as a material, has received poor publicity in recent years. Sourcing it is problematic and its extraction from the earth is known to be done in some instances by child labour in the developing world. It has also caused significant problems for homeowners in Donegal and Co. Mayo as an unintended ingredient in concrete blocks. Thousands of tons of mica go into cosmetics and metallic car paints every year.

Used in this sculpture in its raw state, it references the electrical industry – which uses mica to insulate high energy and high heat components. For all its faults, it is a beautiful and extremely delicate natural material that has the power to protect us from extreme electrical surges. In de Fouw’s sculpture it covers a cloak which glitters with a magical, celestial quality, alluding to the feathered cloak of the shaman or the myth of Icarus, who falls out of the sky, having flown too close to the Sun. However, the title of this piece may evoke the deeds of Prometheus as he stole the ‘Fire of the Gods’ from Mount Olympus, giving this to mankind, thereby bestowing him with ‘intellect’ and so the power of technology and ultimately dominion over nature.

Prometheus became a figure in the Western classical tradition who represented human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or of creating unintended consequences – something which resonates with the ecological crisis in which we find ourselves today.”

From Ciara Healy-Musson’s essay Northern Lights ➜ for the Tales of Hyperborea catalogue.