Omission: Sterile Landscape- Tiago Costa

As part of the Ineligible project, Portuguese artist Tiago Costa made Omission: Sterile Landscape (bone, sand, seeds, shotgun pellets, coins, cactus, broom, sieve, rat poisons). In this work, Costa creates a sculptural fiction in which the creator turns away from any obvious identity or meaning of the Ineligible materials that he received. Using an archaeological tool (a sieve), and closely playing off of the event and process of standard excavation methods, Costa argues that the objects left behind or ignored by archaeologists (those that are “ineligible” and that fall through the sieve, uncollected) actually may be of greatest value. References to death and poison, greed, and to toxic substances that emit dangerous or negative auras combine in the sterile landscape of Omission, with its combination of rat poison, salt, and lead bullet fragments. Survival in such a landscape is not expected or, at the extreme, even possible. Sterility is firmly entrenched and is present deep into the past. The viewers’ curiosities draw them to approach the negative aura of this sterile landscape, though once close to it, the absence of an obvious narrative or a clear meaning frustrates any expectations for knowledge. Archaeology is turned on its head; meaning cannot exist in the barren soil of Omission

Omission: Sterile Landscape was installed as part of Ineligible’s 2020 exhibition at the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture in Santo Tirso, Portugal that was one part of the Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/archaeology show co-curated by Doug Bailey and Sara Navarro. For more information about Creative (un)makings, follow these links:

Museum exhibition description

Portuguese TV spot about opening of Ineligible

Other Featured Work from Ineligible that have been featured on artarchaeologies include the following:

Remember Wounded Knee (Laurent Oliver)

Decadence (Jéssica Burrinha)

Door Knob (hand held) (Ilana Crispi)

L OST and FOOUND (Shaun Caton)

José Pedro’s Toolbox (Rui Gomes Coelho)

The catalogue from the Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/Archaeology exhibition in which Ineligible was installed is available as a free pdf download through the following link:

Bailey, D.W., Navarro, S. and Moreira, A. 2020. Creative (un)makings: Disruptions in Art/Archaeology. Santo Tirso: International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.

One part of the Creative (un)makings exhibition was a conference addressing the issues of the installation. Free pdfs are available of the conference book through the following link:

Bailey, D.W., Navarro, S. and Moreira. A (eds). 2020. Art/Archaeology: Beyond the Archaeology of Art. Santo Tirso: International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.

If you are interested in participating in the Ineligible Project and using disarticulated (former) archaeological materials to create original work that has disruptive social and political impact, then email dwbailey@sfsu.edu with the subject line Ineligible Contributor Request.