Femina Sapiens, (2020 - 2024)
Artist book
Edition of 5 volumes plus two artist's proofs.
BOX (oak wood)
Height: 300 mm. / Width: 119 mm. / Depth: 55 mm.
BOOK (oak wood covers and printing on 100 gr. Hahnemühle rice paper)
Height: 280 mm. / Width: 98 mm. / Depth: 35 mm.
Unfolded Paper Length: 4,628 mm.
Woodwork: Marco Estudio Norte
Edition, images and text © Maite Cerdán
Print: La Troupe
/ ABOUT THE WORK /
Femina Sapiens is a photographic project that calls for feminine knowledge related to the land and ancestry.
The starting point is my interest in the Sierra de Tramontana in Mallorca, a landscape with very special vegetation, history and construction technique of the “pedra en sec”. In my hiking practice, I was immediately aware of the energy, magic and connection I felt with the mountains, the trees, the fauna, the historical vestiges and, above all, the rocks. I had the need to capture how the landscape communicated with me and to share it: I contacted other women to express together in images the relationship of interdependence with nature. A relationship based on instinct, experience, touch, attentive listening to what each rock and each plant has to tell.
On an aesthetic level, the images translate into a dark universe, loaded with textures and eclectic symbology: animals, rites, access keys, shells, cracks and rocks.
The idea of a map is transferred to the work with an arrangement of the images that coincides with my emotional journey through the Sierra throughout these years.
© Maite Cerdán 2024