Quinta Essentia
Heavy duty burlap bags, used for exporting goods such as coffeebeans from third world countries, exude real white gold, thus revealing their ‘Quinta Essentia, their true hidden nature and indicating profound transformation and change.
As the alchemical process attempts to transform everything into gold, so the artistic intervention brings out the gold from the materials.
In this sense the artist is like an alchemist who symbolically alludes to the possibility that in every material, even poor, there is a divine spark, thus the gold as the “Quinta Essentia”.
In the alchemical process, the structure inherent to the material is ‘purified’ by an intervention of fire or other substances, an indispensable precursor to the final transformation into gold. If we translate this alchemical process into a social context, it becomes clear that any stress a society faces in times of crisis can usher a catharsis by activating its inherent excellence.
In this sense crisis rings in a necessary prozess of revolution, bringing new life impulses and growth thus allowing society to evolute.