TWELVE EARTHS SITE 02 ANNOUNCEMENT
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Fathomers is pleased to announce Abrigo do Lagar Velho, an ancient rock shelter in the Lapedo Valley of the District of Leiria in Portugal, as the second site in artist Michael Jones McKean’s long-form planetary sculpture Twelve Earths
Abrigo do Lagar Velho excavation site. Credit: Rui Gaudêncio
Abrigo do Lagar Velho, visited and occupied by humans over tens of millennia, contains one of the most significant archaeological finds of the past century: the 29,000-year-old skeleton of a ceremoniously buried child whose discovery helped change our perceptions of what it means to be human.
Over the next six years, McKean will serve as Artist-in-Residence at the Museo de Leiria and Centro de Interpretação do Abrigo do Lagar Velho. In these roles, McKean will expand and deepen his collaboration with archaeologists, museologists, municipal stakeholders, and others to create a sculptural activation that addresses questions of time, ceremony, and kinship, while also helping to preserve the site for the future.
A group of archeologists working at the Abrigo do Lagar Velho site. Credit: Câmara Municipal de Leiria (L), Michael Jones McKean (R)
McKean’s Twelve Earths [c. 2017-2029] is an unprecedented multidisciplinary endeavor that develops and links 12 diverse sites on a 25,000-mile circumference of Earth. Together, these locations explore interconnectivity, creative intimacy, empathy, connection, and communion with Earth.
In the summer of 2022, McKean and Fathomers announced Twelve Earths’ first site: a cluster of powerful astronomical observatories nested in Chile’s arid mountains. These include the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, where McKean is now also Artist-in-Residence.
“The first two sites of Twelve Earths beautifully encapsulate our species’ search for who we are and where we came from,” said Stacy Switzer, Curator and Executive Director of Fathomers. “Each wrestles with our place in the universe, each is suffused by uncertainty, hope, and a longing for comprehension...”
Upon their discovery in 1998, the remains of the child—colloquially known as the Lapedo Child—transformed our understanding of human evolution. Its skeletal morphology shows a mosaic of traits of both Neanderthals and modern humans. This finding overturned prevailing scientific orthodoxy, which had long held that the two lineages never interbred. The skeleton’s mixed traits—later confirmed by genetic testing—underscore the complexities of the cultural and biological processes through which modern humankind emerged.
Field photograph during the process of excavation. Credit: João Zilhão
The grave site also reveals an elaborate, ritualized burial, one which shows the striking cultural richness of early human societies. The child was wrapped in a shroud, painted with red ochre pigment, and laid on charred pine branches. The child wore a necklace with two shell pendants and a headdress adorned by animal teeth, each object having been crafted carefully by hand. A young rabbit was placed on the child's body. We don’t know how the child died—but the burial and its mysteries encode a clarion, out-of-time message of care, mourning, symbol, and ceremony, emplacing the child in a continuum of birth, life, and death.
About this continuum, McKean says:
“There are moments when we realize that our lives, in all their fine detail, are connected to a commons of human experience—that life itself is more universally experienced than we might ever imagine. This site preserves this idea, encapsulating it as a message: a beautiful reminder of connection to each other across time, customs, language, and space.”
Vânia Carvalho, Coordinator of the Museu de Leiria, says:
“The Lapedo Child tells us about affection and protection, about love and loss, death and life—about us as humankind. We are excited that Michael and his project Twelve Earths will help create a bridge to people unfamiliar with the stories of Abrigo do Lagar Velho, and see to it that this special location is kept alive in our minds for a long time to come.”
For the last three years, McKean has done fieldwork at the site, shadowing the ongoing archaeological work there. McKean’s work will continue to evolve through deep collaboration with the team stewarding the site. “The researchers who have returned here for 25 years are poets of this ground, caretakers of its mysteries,” McKean says. “Uncovering, preserving, measuring, cataloging, and remembering: theirs is a care practice in the deepest sense.”
(Clockwise) 1) Detail of the processing laboratory near Abrigo do Lagar Velho. Credit: Câmara Municipal de Leiria, 2) Abrigo do Lagar Velho bone and artifact archive. Credit: Câmara Municipal de Leiria, 3) A field drawing depicting the leg and foot of the Lapedo Child. Credit: Portrait of the Artist as a Child, João Zilhão, Erik Trinkaus, eds, 4) A specimen box containing artifacts from Abrigo do Lagar Velho. Credit: Michael Jones McKean
Ana Maria Costa, an archaeologist who began working at Abrigo do Lagar Velho in 2012, says:
“After years of online conversation, in 2021, Michael began visiting us, full of curiosity, eager to learn more about the secrets yet to be unraveled and the multidisciplinary work yet to be done. Michael quickly became part of the team, bringing new ideas to Lagar Velho, adding to our scientific perspectives his artistic point of view.”
In parallel with this announcement, Twelve Earths’ website www.twelevearths.com has been refined and expanded, including a dedicated site page for Abrigo do Lagar Velho, in collaboration with A Lot of Moving Parts, a design studio based in New York City.
In 2024, McKean and Fathomers will announce Twelve Earths’ third site, continuing a chain of announcements over the long arc of the project.
For press or media inquiries, please access our press kit and contact yes@fathomers.org.
Fathomers would like to thank Museo de Leiria, Centro de Interpretação do Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Vera C. Rubin Observatory, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Blueprint Pictures, Sable Systems International and WeTransfer for their generous support of Twelve Earths.
ABOUT MICHAEL JONES MCKEAN
Michael Jones McKean is a recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Nancy Graves Foundation Award, a Virginia A. Groot Foundation Award, and an Artadia Award. McKean has been awarded fellowships and residencies at The Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The MacDowell Colony, The International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in New York City. McKean’s work has been exhibited extensively nationally and internationally. He is a Contributing Editor of Art Papers and an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Sculpture + Extended Media Department, where he has taught since 2006. www.michaeljonesmckean.com