Amalá: Territories of justice protection and poetry

Ebó-installation, 2017-2018

Ceramic and terracotta chamotte

Varied Dimensions

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The work presents the multiplicity of the okra plant. Main ingredient of the votive food offered to the  Òrìşà Ṣàngó as a form of thanks for justice and protection. There is an ancestral knowledge that says: "Whoever eats okra does not carry disease".

Amalá is a settlement, a healing portal and offering to Black Gods who mediate through land and votive food, connections with Africa and its diaspora in the hinterland.  

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The plasticity of clay, primordial clay, an element associated with the deity Nàná (lady of the mangroves and grandmother of the Òrìşàs), joins fire, an element of Ṣàngó, producing ceramic artifacts that are used by the Povo de santo in Candomblé terreiros.

In the installation, 1,900 okra were hand-shaped, one-by-one, using terracotta clay collected in the territories of Maragogipinho and Coqueiros, in the Recôncavo da Bahia, in Carnaúbas, in the village of Pilão Arcado in the hinterland of Bahia and in Alto do Moura in Caruru - PE , fired at 900°C and 110°C. 150 kg of chamotte, thoroughly pounded, composes the work.

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Ebó-instalação participated in the exhibition Ounjé: Alimento dos Orixás ;

Circulated with the exhibition "Lugar de Terra" -  Galeria Cañizares, Salvador- Ba, Galeria Mestre Galdino, Caruaru - PE and Galeria Ana das Carrancas Petrolina - PE.

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Photo: Juliano Varela and Matheus José