What You Remember Saves You W.S. Merwin

Earth is both blue and the colour of sand. This is how it appeared in the first picture of our planet, captured during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. An image that entered the collective imagination, the perfect vision of a suspended, living body that could only be the creation of a higher force that shaped the Universe.
The exhibition “What You Remember Saves You” W.S. Merwin explores the life of this “autonomous” entity, reminding us how we need to be within it in order to feel fully a part of it. Yet, humanity often stands apart, observing without entirely understanding its place in the natural order.
In Beba Stoppani’s images, the intimacy of her vision with the physical essence of the Earth invites us to immerse ourselves in it—to view this space as an extension of our own being. To realise that the human body is part of the natural world, every bit as much as water, rock, sand, or air.
Through her work, the artist revives the sometimes-forgotten act of drawing closer, stripping away visual clutter that leads only to dispersion and puts an end to grace, strength, and wonder. The title of the exhibition, which significantly comes from William Stanley Merwin’s poem Learning a Dead Language, serves as a warning—a call to reconnect with nature through memory. When we look at these images, what ultimately re-emerges from our natural memory clearly shows the point of view that it is not the Earth that needs salvation—it will see to that itself—but humanity that must save itself from its own oblivion.