Salted Memory: Crystallization as Material and Method

Salts crystals are produced through the evaporation–intentional or not–of mineral rich waters, leaving behind crystals as memory, artifact, rubble, and food. In this workshop, salt becomes both a critical material that artists can use to create stunning rocky textures and a way of thinking about the world. Salt is a means and a metaphor for the environment, how materials become historical, and the afterlife of objects.

Chilean-American artist Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida will provide an overview of his experimentation with “salt sculpture” with textiles–teaching his method and approach to salt as a technique that produces memory, especially in the salt-producing flatlands of South America. 

Participants will learn about the chemistry and history of crystallization before creating textile samples, brines that produce vastly different crystal outcomes, and a small salt sculpture to take home.