Gotland's Lithological Society was created in 2023 by the visual artist Tuula Närhinen for the Art of Heritage initiative, a project realised by the Baltic Art Center (BAC) in collaboration with the Gotland Museum. The GLS sets out to study the geological history and cultural traditions associated with the uses of limestone. Focusing on lithological matters and petrificata, the project explores cycles of sedimentation and erosion. The work draws from littoral processes - the elemental forces of nature that constantly layer, expose and erode sediments on the beach banks - as well as from the human cultural techniques in their futile attempt to preserve memories in limestone – only to end up with weathered church ruins, partly erased inscriptions and fragmentary fossil collections.

The Reef Atlas

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Coordinator Anna Norberg from the Baltic Art Centre helped me to mount a testprint of a drawing on the museum wall in May 2024.

We were also trying out different font types to mark the fossils on floor slabs. The three staircases will we coded with scandinavian letters Å, Ä and Ö.

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Based on the fossil imprints found in the Historical museum's three staircases, Närhinen endeavours to depict and to re-trace outlines of the coral reefs by means of ink drawings drafted on translucent plastic film.

The mapped fossil imprints will be marked with code letters, printed on vinyl and taped directly on the floor cladding. The littera on the limestone slabs refer to the A3 sheets of the Atlas.

The Reef Atlas sets out to map and to imagine the fossil flora of the ancient seabed using the Gotland museum's limestone floor cladding as a starting point.