In everyday language, we often say, “you’re as cold as stone.” Yet this phrase, on closer inspection, seems misleading. Examining a stone’s structure and color reveals its rich mineral composition. The texture of its surface reflects the forces that shaped it: water smooths its edges, pressure causes fractures, and high temperatures leave it roughened. Each stone carries a record of Earth’s formative processes, the foundation of our present reality. Moreover, stone was humanity’s first tool, empowering us to shape our surroundings and create. At the same time, this tool warms under persistent touch, revealing its openness towards cooperation.
Sound by: Enrique Mendoza Mejia

BIO:
Laura Adel (born May 23, 1994 in Gdańsk) is a PhD student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. She lectures at the Department of Media Art. In her work, she explores the principles of perception and the properties of space by integrating artistic creation in a new media environment.

Sensitive Bodies is part of the artist residency within the EU platform Magic Carpets.

About JAB
Jelsa Art Biennial on the island of Hvar is a contemporary art festival that connects diverse audiences through a variety of artistic media and practices. It focuses equally on established and emerging artists. The event is unique in that its works are mostly performed in public spaces, with the aim of bringing contemporary art closer to the widest possible audience and emphasizing art that conveys a message of social responsibility and sustainability. In this sense, JAB has a vision to become a unique and recognizable event of socially responsible art on a European level and a generator of development based on ecological awareness and culture.

Co-production partners: LAB852, Sustainable Island
JAB programme is co-financed by: EU Creative Europe Programme, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Jelsa Tourist Board, Split-Dalmatia County, City of Zagreb, Culture Moves Europe, Magic Carpets, Co-Vision, Goethe Institute, Kultura Nova Foundation, Municipality of Jelsa, Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, City of Agueda
In partnership with: Jelsa Municipal Museum, Croatian Design Society, Monade, Dalmacijaland Gallery, Vrboska Film Festival, AgitLab, Mudri Brk, Hvar Summer Festival
Media partners: T-Portal, Morski.hr
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Many times one has walked past, stepped on a rock, not giving it a second thought at all, even though there are many thoughts to be had about the hundreds, thousands, millions of these quiet shapes that make up the ground beneath one’s feet. Islands emerging from the sea, when viewed from far above, resemble pebbles or rocks which extend upwards from the foamy, blue carpet. Anything and everything is an object, a body - interacting with other bodies, giving and taking away warmth, borrowing space, holding energy. In this interaction, the hands which hold become vessels for exchange, while the mind connects to a greater force, the sight and physicality taking center stage. 

Polish artist Laura Adel has been working with the themes of the extended and symbiotic character of contemporary realities even before she first started her residency research in April 2025. In much of her work, the boundaries between the physical and the virtual dissolve into an increasingly fluid continuum. For Jelsa Art Biennial, she utilized the already existing software in combination with scanned and 3D printed objects which respond to touch in real time, displaying their information in a visual format on screen. In the interactive installation “Sensitive Bodies”, created by 3D scanning and printing three different stones collected on the shores of Hvar island, visitors are invited to manipulate these models of stones, by using their 3D-printed counterpart. Through this gesture, the artist reflects on the shifting relationship between technology and nature: no longer positioned as oppositional forces, they begin to merge, informing and transforming one another. Within this context, the artist’s practice underscores the importance of cultivating mutual respect and imaginative harmony between these domains. Nature offers grounding, restoration, and a return to origin, while technology expands cognitive reach and enables modes of experience that surpass bodily limitations.

The work, displayed in an old wine cellar, invited a diverse audience of children and adults alike, to interact with the Jelsa stones, and in doing so trigger their real-time projection displayed on a large projection screen. The tactile sensation of the 3D printed stones followed by their visually intriguing animation narrates the geological histories and forces that shaped them—transforming each stone into a vessel of memory and an emblem of the landscape. This immersive environment aims to encourage visitors to encounter the natural world with heightened attentiveness. By experiencing the stones simultaneously as material objects and digital extensions, the work seeks to prompt reflection on our evolving relationship to place, and on the shifting interplay between natural formations and technological imagination.