The North Patio of the Museo Universidad de Navarra invites from this Friday to connect with the primordial, with the origins, perhaps with Ancient Greece, perhaps with a time out of time. This space hosts from today the installation Women of Lot, made during this week in the ephemeral sculpture workshop that Javier Viver has given this week at the Museum to students of the University of Navarra. The project has been supported by Fundación La Caixa and Fundación Caja Navarra, and the collaboration of Horno Artesano, in Burlada.

In the artist's words, this sculptural ensemble "has to do with the ancestral, it transcends time, it even takes us back to Greece, to that archaeological work of preserving statues, ruins that crumble, but with the will to keep them in time". This contrasts with the material with which the pieces have been made, stone salt, an ephemeral and fragile component. "That struggle between the timeless and the perishable gives the installation a tremendously archaic touch and, at the same time, it gets out of hand. It was wonderful," he said.

During his presentation to the media this Friday, the artist was accompanied by Carlos Bernar, head of the Museum's area, who emphasized that it was "a luxury to have Javier share his experience". Campus Creativo of the Museum, who stressed that it has been "a luxury to have Javier share his experience". In this sense, he explained that during the workshop they have sought that "students live how a work of art is generated, how is the process, those uncertainties and struggles of the artist with the work itself. In addition, being something experimental, we have had to work in complex conditions. They have learned a lot. The objective was not to learn sculpture, but to share the creative process with the artist and see how he acted and made decisions. It was like going back to the origins of the artists' workshops, to the figure of the apprentice.

AN EXCITING EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS

Viver, who already exhibited Aurelia Immortal at the Museum in 2017, highlighted the interesting meeting with the participating students. "They are people who come from other fields and tell you the experience of what it has meant to face sculptural processes. They have entered the world of the artist's studio and it has been tremendously rewarding this approach to young people. It has been a great experience. One of these participants, Nieves García, a 4th year Philosophy student, valued "the artist's look", who even in difficult moments, "sees beauty in everything": "It helps a lot for the work of art and for life in general that positive attitude and optimism".

Together they have worked on this experimental and collaborative process, which draws from the biblical story in Genesis and tells how Yahweh saved Lot's family from dying in the fire he threw on Sodom. In their flight to Zoar, he ordered them not to look back. However, Lot's wife disobeyed and became a pillar of salt.

The sculptures have been developed in two distinct phases, the first carried out in the artisan oven in Burlada. "We approached it with the risks involved in the process itself and that part of research involved in making salt statues by baking them in an oven that is usually used to bake bread," says Viver.

To make it, months before, they prepared the 80-kilogram aluminum mold that was filled with salt, doubling its weight, and then put it in the oven. "It is incredible how, from the first attempts, in which the pieces did not come out, we have been seeing the possibilities, that we need, for example, more cooking time (3 hours at 200 degrees), tremendously interesting technical parameters," he says. In the installation, visitors will also be able to see this aluminum frame, with one of the sculptures inside, and some smaller pieces that show the creative process.

The second part of the workshop took place in the Museum, using a binder to consolidate the salt. In addition, work has been done on the arrangement of the pieces seated in the North Patio, a phase in which the students have also participated. Starting this Friday afternoon, the public will be able to enjoy this ephemeral installation, which can be visited until the weather, rain and wind make it disappear. "It has theattraction of recording the process and seeing how they disappear and end up becoming water, integrating into the life cycle."