Preparing to bring in the site, the second smell, of the installation Within the Smells of History, I remembered a poetry I wrote in 1991, as part of chapter of Diary of Images entitled My Body is my Country. Since we started the pandemic, Covid-19 and us, have entered our bodies. Country here is seen as the universe for me. It is from inside the body that the new smell of RAINFOREST is felt. I am placing a fragment of My Body is my Country.
The Rape and Revenge of Gaia, silkscreen on Amate paper, raffia and branches eaten by beavers. 1987
The body is the landscape of my soul
A procession of memories
to the origin of being female
...the turtle carries her shell through waters and savannahs...
We can't breathe
Trees were scorched
Forests massacred
Rivers swallowed
Mountains ravished
She screams from deep caverns
She revenges the unnecessary sacrifice of her blood.
My Body is my Country
An enlarged boa swallowing its own entrails
A landscape of flesh made of transparent reds
Earth still hopes for the tranquility of a mountain
Several branches are already barren
Fires devour identities
Murderous intentions
Enchantment was broken
Innocence was lost
...The turtle hibernates inside her carapace
She protects her wings for the next migration...
Voices roam around decimated topographies
Penetrate into woodlands of desperation
Red rivers enter mountains cut by golden nuggets fever
At night,
Searching for land
Miners enter indigenous territories
While bodies embrace dead branches.
Earth bleeds
Gaia
She penetrates a seascape of mourning
My country oozes
The dolphin is the prey of tuna fishing
The soil is my flesh
Earth weeps benumbed fluids
Extinct semen
Cracked egg
Corpse born from savage rape
...The turtle returns to the oleaginous sea after
depositing its uncertain future on the honeyed sands...
The sea turtle is the catch of shrimp fishing
Oceans choke on excrement
Birds drench their thirst with oil
My Body is my Country
A resilient mass that stretches to embrace my territory
A land of iron, memories and resistance.
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