TRIBUS Where The Spades Have Turned

The story background refers to stone circles, 2000-year old stone constellations, located in North-West of Poland. But if fact the story is about what happens around these circles - rituals of investigation and leaving space for mystery clashes here.

TRIBUS - Where The Spades Have Turned

For several years, Anna Twardowska (b. 1985, Poland) collected archeological notes, maps, and sketches of engravings - bits and pieces of information all related to the Gothic stone circles located in the forests of north-western Poland. She also encountered several visitors of these sites in the woods, which eventually made her conclude that there are two contrasting perspectives on the matter: one of science and one of human adaptation. 

While colorful protagonists - archeologists, astronomers, ecologists and even a Nazi think tank - have explored the megalithic constellations with all sorts of motivations in the past, Anna finds that two truths can exist parallel to each other, somewhere on the border of claimed certitudes and more subjective notions. 

While scientists who for over 150 years researched these vicinities have expressed the tendency to dig for answers, eager for disclosure, a wide variety of people coming from near and far rather express all sorts of fascinations for and connections with these peculiar stone constellations seemingly more in tune with the apparent energy resonating from these remnants.

The archeological data point towards strong maternal structures within the Goth’s culture, and biologists have mapped a wide variety of lichen that grow on the stones - but what does it really say to those who somehow connect with the ancient tribes in an indefinable yet very lived manner?  

Things are interconnected here, but the dots refuse to connect. Why not accept and embrace such an existential gap? This book represents how an assumed discrepancy between the material and the abstract can altogether result in another kind of symbiosis.

Book design: Joanna Jopkiewicz

Text: Erik Vroons