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Anahí, 2023

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                 The work named Anahí consists of the construction of 600 glazed ceramic sculptures of the ceibo flower, also known as “Anahí”, in a natural scale of 1:1, spread across the pueblo Garzón, in Uruguay. It comes from the Tupi Guarani legend of the indigenous woman Anahí who, resisting Spanish colonization and the attack of the Spanish, was burned alive. In the place where she was burned, a tree grew with flowers in the shape of intense red flames. The ceibo flower, also known as Anahí or cork flower, is a symbol of Uruguay and Argentina.
                 
                 The 600 glazed ceramic flowers are set in arrangements, in clusters like the tree, and scattered without hierarchy throughout the village of Garzón. The quantity is also due to the design of the number 6 that turns 9 upside down, and is also related to the anatomical design of the flower itself, which has a “hermaphrodite” shape, erotic, alluding to the flame and also to a shell with a crest or stem.

                 Starting from an arrangement such as the pattern present on the branch of the tree, the ceramic flowers are pulverized throughout the pueblo like crumbs, however, unlike the “Hansel and Gretel” fable, they are devoid of the notion of development, encounter or summit. In the case of the work Anahí, it is a drawing that is always partial, which doesn’t give itself completely, without a path with a defined beginning, middle and end, something like “I arrived”, “it’s here”, without an origin and end clearly demarcated.

                 A natural red glaze was used on the ceramics, which didn’t radiate lead when fired at low and high temperatures – red glazes for ceramics are highly toxic, they contain lead in their composition – therefore, thorough research was also necessary. Each flower was sculpted manually by ceramicists João Ferreira, Shirley Andrade and artist and ceramicist Susanne Schirato, under Susanne’s direction.

                 The notion of a title that is a personal name or a personal name that is a title – Anahí – is recurrent in my production, in works like Augusta, Dulcinéia, Luzia, Bataille, Leiris, Buñuel.

Thiago Honório, January 2023.

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