anthropophagic SUMI

Este texto é da época da exposição no AIAV (março, 2007).

These writings were made during the exhibition at AIAV (march, 2007).

Exactly one year ago I was drowning on the sea next to a small fishermen village in Rio de Janeiro, and was found by some children, which dragged me inside their world. The short film Tide shows a drifting foreigner woman, myself, entering an isolated tropical wonder-reality.

One year later the same foreigner flied half of the globe, and arrived at an also isolated and rural Japan. She got immersed in the darkness of sumi and the kanjis, and dived into Japanese calligraphy in search of a path for a possible visual connection with this obscure culture. But fugacious kanjis refused to follow the brush, and rebelled escape. In the diffuse pace of the waters, they moved into other shapes, forms which could not be reached by the intellect, strange creatures, sumi organisms; life forms of an unintelligible shadow.

This work’s approach to the Japanese traditional culture is not anthropologic, but anthropophagic. It’s connected to the Oswald de Andrade’s ideas: “I’m only interested in what it’s not mine”, “Only the anthropophagy unites us.” The foreigner takes a piece of the traditional culture and mixes, transforms, reinvents, eats it, without any embarrassment. Viewers should feel lost and anxious in front of images that can’t reach a clear communication.