Gaia D’Arrigo
Salt is a mineral present across biological, ecological, and chemical systems. Salt in Motion is an interactive installation that explores the connection between the Romanian saline landscape, the human body and healing practices linked to salt mines and springs. It features a halogenerator system from PRIZMA combining salt rocks from the Ocnele Mari mine. The device disperses aerosolized salt in controlled environments, a wellness treatment rooted in speleotherapy–the exposure to salt mine microclimates known to benefit respiratory conditions.
A brine-filled tank recalls the tradition of salt bathing at springs, where locals once collected brine for domestic use and therapeutic soaking. The installation also includes a reconstruction of briquetage salt containers, based on fragments discovered at the Valea Sărată–Gherla site by Gaia and the ethnoarcheologist Marius Alexianu.
Presented alongside salt in its industrially recognised forms—raw material, technical grade, and pharmaceutical purity—the work reveals how this compound, so embedded in daily life that it becomes invisible, is continuously refined, regulated, and ritualised. Salt becomes not only substance, but vector: shaping bodies, landscapes, and infrastructures.
Credits
Technical partnership: Salrom SA, PRIZMA Ltd
3D Renders: Davide Busnelli
Sensor design: Werner van der Zwan
3D printing: Sara Levato
Cutting the salt boulder: Victor Florean (CMC Baia Mare)