Stones have been admired and collected by mankind since time immemorial. Diez mil historias de piedras presents an installation that operates as an open memoir of Javier Orfón's biography—growing up between San Lorenzo and Las Piedras, among the unique rock formations known as guajonales: caves and cavities formed by gaps between huge granite stones. From this context, Orfón has collected rocks and stones since he was 16 years old, gathering them across the Puerto Rican archipelago and abroad, and receiving them as gifts from friends. He began visiting caves and rock shelters, became interested in rock art, and started learning techniques of ancestral Antillean pottery from Alice Chéveres (a cultural rock).
Over time, this collecting led him to the Japanese practice of suiseki, the art of stone appreciation, which values stability, longevity, and immortality. Collected in the wild, on mountains and in streambeds, and then displayed in their natural state, these stones are objects of great beauty. Supporting and surrounding these rocks are ceramic bases, called daiza, that the artist has crafted from native clays, a form of microscopic stone, which he gathers during his walks, as well as other found materials, including glass, sea sand, books, and a notebook with stone paper containing verses by poets related to rocks. Orfón’s suisekis trace his life and the relationships that he’s developed through his collections. Stones from Morovis, San Lorenzo, Culebra, and Jayuya mingle with peers from Skowhegan, Lisboa, and the Dominican Republic, brought together by an appreciation for their forms. The photo installation that accompanies his groupings shows one of the Padre Nazario stones, enigmatic archeological artifacts that have clues that they might represent a pre-Colombian lost language, alongside stone walls known as the stone aquarium from the Batey del Delfín in Mayagüez, the Chandelier Cave in Mona, the petroglyphs found on the coast of Manatí, as well as the Orion Nebula, the origin of star and planet matter that coalesed into planet Earth.
In a surreal way, Javier Orfón presents these stones as the material that narrates his life and aesthetic experiences in his native Puerto Rico and, consequently, in this world. This material is the origin, the first ancestor, the first book, the first poem, and the primordial work of art of humanity. Diez mil historias de piedras sees the whole world in itself, as the comprehension and appreciation of nature through a stone, a result of nature's accretion over time and its elements.
Javier Orfón (b. 1989, Caguas, PR) ’s practice, working through drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations, is inspired by topophilia, a strong sense of place encompassing a particular space’s sensations and aesthetic experiences. His knowledge and connection to the sites guide his multidisciplinary research, which encompasses geography, anthropology, ecology, architecture, and oral history. This research nourishes his practice of creating atemporal archeologies of the inquired site, in which he explores the human condition, nature, the anthropogenic impact, memory, otherness, landscape, and globalization.