BLACK FIRE
Presentation
In northern India, betwen Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, cattle dung plays a vital role in the relationship between man and his surrounding environment. The energy contained in wastes is involved, not only in the ritual of cooking and the generation of heat to diminish winter cold, but also as irrumption of matter in the landscape.
As if it were a game in the inmense geography , generous in farming and livestock, filled with women raising children, beauty, wheat and mustard, cattle dung is the expressive choice that innocently accompanies the construction of primitive energy plants. They are functional constructions, basic forms that fulfill an alleviating purpose.
Being made with hands and soul, the temptation of talking about love or speaking to God through matter, each one is induced to build his own geometries and imprints, thus making matter an accomplice, a witness, a storyteller. Entering these free, expressive forms widely spread throughout the Indian paths encourages man to foretell the other.
Dark presences in which a close relationship -both material and symbolic- is etablished be-tween the formal appearance that evokes the early cottage home, the barn, the hermitage, and the bonfire or the fireplace awaiting indoors. Subtle correspondence between form and meaning, bearing a great esthetic strenghth. Notable and elementary appearances made of wastes, burst in to open up senses to an unlimited landscape.
With the participation of:
Diana Mejía and Hugo Zapata
India / Colombia, May 2004
