What memories do the leaves bring you? -  studies to petrify leaves #1

Ebó-performance in video, 2019

Akoko leaves, water, slip,  assorted utensils  

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“Time gives, time takes away, time passes and the leaf turns”

African proverb

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Àgò, nanny mi Òsanyìn. Òsányìn Aláse ewé.

Sasányìn, is a ritual where Ófòs are sung  for Òsányìn during a leaf-picking ritual, or in preparing the leaves for any ritual. There is no function without a sheet.

Activate the leaves –  to wake up your ancestral powers - memories that the leaves bring - and secrets that slip through your fingers. Sap.

- Kó si ewé, kó sí Òrìsà.

A big house. Ruins of a recent and recurring past.

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Maintenance of a memory marked by the idea of “progress”. Landmark of a slaveholding and extractive backwoods, predatory and silent. The mansion became the home of homeless people.

A passing place...

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Ghosts of coloniality lie on the dirt floor of a deformed ruins.

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Using a white feed, I manipulate the soil. I bathe leaves in liquid clay, cover them with mud, 7 strategic baths, time, time, time, time. Repeats. Bath leaves in liquid clay, cover them with mud, 7 strategic baths, time, time, time, time.

I wash Akòko leaves - in clean water - from the fresh river bed. I cover them.

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Hanging on a clothesline in the open, I let them dry in the late afternoon sun.

I leave trails of mud, drops of water and a string with Akòko leaves hanging.

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I activate the space with an Ebó, so they never forget the woods.

Never forget the memory that the leaves carry.

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Earth, water, leaf.

The action assimilates the idea of covering dissident bodies, creating layers of protection, to petrify leaves, which are heated and forgotten bodies.

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I use water from the river bed, terracotta slip with paper, terracotta slip with sawdust.

This Ebó-performance video was part of the exhibition – Strategy for the contour, 2019, SESC Casa Amarela and at Galeria Ana das Carrancas, Petrolina – PE .