We exist: what is it meant for?
* The word oração in Portuguese can suggest, on the one hand, clause or phrase and, on the other, prayer, litany, ororation.
**The text, the procession, the cotton field, the seventeenth-century imagem de roca brought from Portugal for the exhibition. We begin in May, at Luisa Strina, with Oração (May 11 – June 24), moving to the Capela do Morumbi with Texto (July 1 – mid-September). A processional exhibition in two acts by Thiago Honório.
Processional Exhibition in Two Acts:
Oração* and Texto**
Oração
Origin
Procession
Six years of our Solo, same ground
purple Earth, red,
Southeastern
After comings and goings,
defeats and victories,
we land,
we arrive.
Same view
Same garden
The eyes that lead us
And protect us
Vision
The santos de Roca
The company of Indians
Colonial market
Endless transit
Of bodies, of lives
Of tongues, of creeds
Immigration
And now, a few years later,
what fabric is fabricated in the world, by hand?
Is it Made in China or was it made by artisans?
The tissued text
Tessitura
The web of life
leaves a residue
wingspan
Why do we go, return,
and meet
here again?
Among prayers, days and nights,
Worships and meditations
Among texts, readings and weavings
We sleep
And dream
We pass through bright spaces
Plantations, wheat, cotton
And the peaches, where do they come from?
Which fruits are in season?
We will see the summer
of 1997 in 2023
Stacked boxes
of imported fruits
China, Persia, Greece
The East, rising sun
Passage of time,
of life
We have aged
And following the earth’s cycles,
We will die
Another end-of-season
spring
harvest
Agriculture, astronomy, astrology
Planets aligned in Capricorn
Pandemic
death camps
extermination on a national platform
social
distancing
So many people are gone
And we are still here
in this no-
man’s land
from May to May
from fall to fall
5 years
In prayer
One cycle ends, another begins
I wait for you at the gate
Shall we go together
To that place where the light never goes out
Where silence permeates all things?
Where what follows no longer matters,
because everything is already there?
Chaos
The Tao
Physics
The so-called science
Consciousness
Silence and light
amorousness
Walking together
Through life’s highs and lows
Through the valleys of death,
of fear
Through the earthen throat
(at the museum)
Roçabarroca
through fields
of cotton
(from the gallery to the chapel)
Cultivated by immigrants from Japan
The worm, the silk road
Ahimsa silk
How to slow down violence
Destruction
Against everything
Against all beings
Capitalism, mining
We know
It is an ancestral knowledge
But we do little
Vertigo
Abysmal-desire
to jump
to fall
to reach
the ground
Terra firma
Turning point,
Of overlapping ideograms
Ma
Portal and entrance of light
The sun waits for us
These are times of strength, of joy,
New paths, procession
Of religious architecture
Illumination
Experiência n.2
Subversive walk
in reverse
we follow
in line
day after day
About-deface
Resurfacing
The faithful
carry the saint
in their hands
and follow them
behind their back
The flowers trace paths
through the city streets
festival, feast, congregation
I see you there, as a child
In the procession
We are passing through
We will pass
And all things transitory
Will accompany us
Carnival
Via dolorosa
14 stations
From the earth, the red, the blood
the cross
from the woven
peach skin
we reach the white
suspension
ethereal
spatial
cotton
The handmade
The Imagem de Vestir
Saint incarnate
Scarification mosaic of golden
peach skin
bathed in light
sacred eternalized
youth
The port,
The bay of all saints
The soapstone
Churches, pillory
Mineiro baroque
Expropriation
Aleijadinho’s readings
Congonhas, Congõi:
what sustains
what nourishes,
what maintains existence
Support
Let’s carry on
And we’ll have the cut
Off with their heads!
Tiradentes
Framed landscape
Rectangular snippet of sight
Image cut from the body
dissociation
A saint’s head
Another one looking at us In prayer
Krishna, Christ
Divine manifestation
Carnação
It was us who cut (or let cut)
the circle
the cycle
the round
the roots
So we live
separated
sectioned off
minding our lives
each of us in our own square
and the Lacanian cut:
come back in six years.
— Ana Paula Cohen
São Paulo: Luisa Strina, May/fall in the southern hemisphere,
2023
Oração* and Texto**
Oração
Origin
Procession
Six years of our Solo, same ground
purple Earth, red,
Southeastern
After comings and goings,
defeats and victories,
we land,
we arrive.
Same view
Same garden
The eyes that lead us
And protect us
Vision
The santos de Roca
The company of Indians
Colonial market
Endless transit
Of bodies, of lives
Of tongues, of creeds
Immigration
And now, a few years later,
what fabric is fabricated in the world, by hand?
Is it Made in China or was it made by artisans?
The tissued text
Tessitura
The web of life
leaves a residue
wingspan
Why do we go, return,
and meet
here again?
Among prayers, days and nights,
Worships and meditations
Among texts, readings and weavings
We sleep
And dream
We pass through bright spaces
Plantations, wheat, cotton
And the peaches, where do they come from?
Which fruits are in season?
We will see the summer
of 1997 in 2023
Stacked boxes
of imported fruits
China, Persia, Greece
The East, rising sun
Passage of time,
of life
We have aged
And following the earth’s cycles,
We will die
Another end-of-season
spring
harvest
Agriculture, astronomy, astrology
Planets aligned in Capricorn
Pandemic
death camps
extermination on a national platform
social
distancing
So many people are gone
And we are still here
in this no-
man’s land
from May to May
from fall to fall
5 years
In prayer
One cycle ends, another begins
I wait for you at the gate
Shall we go together
To that place where the light never goes out
Where silence permeates all things?
Where what follows no longer matters,
because everything is already there?
Chaos
The Tao
Physics
The so-called science
Consciousness
Silence and light
amorousness
Walking together
Through life’s highs and lows
Through the valleys of death,
of fear
Through the earthen throat
(at the museum)
Roçabarroca
through fields
of cotton
(from the gallery to the chapel)
Cultivated by immigrants from Japan
The worm, the silk road
Ahimsa silk
How to slow down violence
Destruction
Against everything
Against all beings
Capitalism, mining
We know
It is an ancestral knowledge
But we do little
Vertigo
Abysmal-desire
to jump
to fall
to reach
the ground
Terra firma
Turning point,
Of overlapping ideograms
Ma
Portal and entrance of light
The sun waits for us
These are times of strength, of joy,
New paths, procession
Of religious architecture
Illumination
Experiência n.2
Subversive walk
in reverse
we follow
in line
day after day
About-deface
Resurfacing
The faithful
carry the saint
in their hands
and follow them
behind their back
The flowers trace paths
through the city streets
festival, feast, congregation
I see you there, as a child
In the procession
We are passing through
We will pass
And all things transitory
Will accompany us
Carnival
Via dolorosa
14 stations
From the earth, the red, the blood
the cross
from the woven
peach skin
we reach the white
suspension
ethereal
spatial
cotton
The handmade
The Imagem de Vestir
Saint incarnate
Scarification mosaic of golden
peach skin
bathed in light
sacred eternalized
youth
The port,
The bay of all saints
The soapstone
Churches, pillory
Mineiro baroque
Expropriation
Aleijadinho’s readings
Congonhas, Congõi:
what sustains
what nourishes,
what maintains existence
Support
Let’s carry on
And we’ll have the cut
Off with their heads!
Tiradentes
Framed landscape
Rectangular snippet of sight
Image cut from the body
dissociation
A saint’s head
Another one looking at us In prayer
Krishna, Christ
Divine manifestation
Carnação
It was us who cut (or let cut)
the circle
the cycle
the round
the roots
So we live
separated
sectioned off
minding our lives
each of us in our own square
and the Lacanian cut:
come back in six years.
— Ana Paula Cohen
São Paulo: Luisa Strina, May/fall in the southern hemisphere,
2023