I dreamt I was a rock in my past life
I dreamt I was a rock in my past life is an installation that invites visitors to engage with their senses and enter a space filled with rocks. A short film introduces viewers to the microscopic surface of the stones, offering a dreamlike journey where images can only be seen by pressing the eye to the mineral’s surface.
A text at the bottom of the screen encourages meditation on the possibility of being a stone in a past life, prompting questions like: What did that feel like? Sound like? Smell like? Did these rocks have a destiny, did they dream last night? Questions that are asked but do not require definitive answers. Entering this surreal space, where pebbles are exhibited as artworks, allows people to be curious and spend time with rocks, listen to the sounds and whispers of stones, lift them to the eyes, examine surfaces and spots, touch edges and scars or feel the skin eroding through the fingertips. Dear rocks, what were you in your past life?
Artist’s statement
I came to Fabrica with a curiosity towards rocks, their sounds, dreams and edges. What sound do they make? How do they connect us to Deep Time?
It turns out that rocks and stones are pretty quiet… They stand so still and silent that you would forget they exist… Until they interact with others. It is only in touching other surfaces that sounds exist. I interviewed the rocks, in a way, and used their sounds to explore what it feels like to be a rock interacting with the world.
Then, in a dream, the feeling of being a rock in my past life came to me. I wondered what it was like and how long it lasted. I’ve pondered the lives of these weighted universes in my hand and asked them many questions.
In the end, I interviewed the rock—or maybe the rock interviewed me.
Bio
Originally from Bulgaria, Mitoshka Alkova is a documentary filmmaker and typewriter artist based in the UK. She has worked on several projects focusing on themes such as nostalgia, the poetics of beekeeping, oral history, and sound exploration in Bulgaria, the UK, Malta, and Saudi Arabia. This is where she began exploring how sound can shape a place and has the power to transform an object. In her typewriter practice, Mitoshka explores how to create images through the machine’s keys, bringing new meanings in a world of digital takeover.
