2 Channel Video Installation / Stereo / 8:06 / 2011

During my two-month artist residency at Sacatar in Itaparica, Brazil, I focused my research and artistic practice on the knowledge, ideas, and mythologies surrounding the sea. Itaparica is an island village in Bahia whose Afro-Brazilian culture and spiritual traditions are deeply connected to nature. Within Candomblé, Yemanjá represents as a female Orixá the sea and is a central figure in Afro-Brazilian religious traditions.

In this work, I approach the sea as an image of the cyclical nature of birth, life, and death. I collaborated with an initiated woman and her granddaughter, both of whom are connected to a small Candomblé temple in Itaparica.

The title Mar Morto (Eng. Sea of Death) refers to the novel by Brazilian author Jorge Amado. The two-channel video installation explores the relationship between generations, memory, spirituality, and transformation through the symbolic presence of the sea.

On one screen, the two protagonists repeatedly walk in each other’s footsteps. Through the editing, their individual movements gradually merge into a single gesture. They then watch themselves in a mirror, while each other’s image appears to disappear into the sea.

On the second screen, the older woman sings a song dedicated to Yemanjá. Her voice blends with footage from a Candomblé ceremony at the temple of which she is a member.

The installation brings together personal encounter, ritual, and cultural memory. The sea becomes a space between presence and disappearance, life and death.