Site-specific installation made during a three week residency at Mirante Xique-Xique
July 2023
Igatu, Andaraí, Chapada Diamantina - BA, Brazil
Result of my first artistic residency, at Mirante Xique-Xique, on the small village of Igatu, Bahia. The installation was made using rocks and other natural materials from that unique place, and its aim was to translate the way the villagers see and interact with that environment.
Chapada Diamantina is a mountain range in Bahia, site of intense diamond mining during the late XIX and beginning of XX. Igatu was one of the villages founded to house the miners, and carries memories of that period to this day.
Perhaps one of the most important, but rarely remembered aspects of that past are the tunnels from the mines that cut through the village's underground, creating huge air pockets. During a guided tour to the Gruna do Brejo, one of the former diamond mines in the outskirts of the village, our guide Juquinha said that "the rocks in which Igatu is build are floating on air". His words are represented in this piece.
