HUNTING BLACK METEORITES: Gender Transgression + Sacred Stones includes research into myths and histories of queer and third gender folks alongside synchronicities that occurred over several months in Sicily and Southern Italy while visiting ancestral villages and sacred sites dedicated to Black Madonnas, Cybele, Attis, and several saints, sibyls, and nymphs.
An ancestral village of Campagna is located an hour from the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montevergine to the north and the hermitage of San Michele a le Grottelle to the south. Madonna di Montevergine is a Black Madonna and the patron of gender expansion and LGBT folks. Among her pilgrims are the femminielli, people of a third-gender who are considered lucky and sacred. The sanctuary is located at an ancient site dedicated to Cybele – mother goddess of the harvest, who is surrounded by wild music, wine, and ecstatic dancing. Who existed in liminality and whose sacred symbol is a black meteorite, and whose priests included the Galli, prophets of a third gender. The hermitage of San Michele a le Grottelle is a cave once dedicated to Attis, consort of Cybele.
The project includes a ritual performance, ephemera, and a publication.
Ritual ephemera on site
Ampulla
aluminum, acrylic, guache, cork, rosemary, olive oil
Stone Vessel
stone and wax
Meteorite on display at Museo Didattico della Pietra di Padula
Pietra Meteorite
Stone and acrylic
Ginestra growing along the roadside to the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montevergine
Ginestra flowers, dried and powdered before being transformed into ink
Leucothea’s Veil
polyester string, hematite, etna rock, stone
Deodar
cyanotype
Alloro Sibilla
bay leaves, guache, ink
San Giovanni in Fonte, once a site dedicated to the nymph Leucóthea
The hermitage of San Michele a le Grottelle, a cave once dedicated to Attis, consort of Cybele and god of nature, vegetation, and fertility
