I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears is a visual and narrative exploration of meteorites as carriers of myth, memory, and meaning. Emilia Martin traces the lives of these cosmic rocks—how they shift from overlooked matter to sacred relics, from doorstops to objects of reverence. Long before science accepted their existence, meteorites were feared, worshipped, consumed, and enshrined—woven into communal belief systems across cultures and centuries.
Rooted in personal encounters, archival research, and oral histories, the project examines how we assign significance to objects—and how truth and fiction are often less oppositional than we think. Meteorites embody a profound contradiction: they are travelers from deep time, yet perceived as mute and immobile. Martin explores this tension through storytelling, questioning who gets to name what is real, and whose knowledge is preserved or erased.
Drawing on her own background between rural Eastern Poland and industrial Silesia, Martin approaches her work through feminist and speculative lenses. Photography, writing, and sound converge to open a space for reimagining inherited narratives and cosmologies. She engages with myth not as escapism, but as a lens through which we access deeper truths and collective memory.
This body of work invites viewers to linger in ambiguity—to consider how belief systems form, how meaning is made, and how the cosmic can live quietly among us. Through carefully sequenced images and text, I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears offers a poetic meditation on wonder, doubt, and the power of storytelling to transform the seemingly ordinary into something sacred.
