Tania Candiani

This piece forms part of Candiani’s explorations of water. Connected to Name the Water, in this installation the artist creates a visual representation in carved stone of the sound of words for bodies of water in different Indigenous languages. The porosity and resistance of the material speak to solidity and preservation and contrast with the ephemerality of sound and the fluidity of water as an element. This installation emphasizes coexistence with nature and the preservation of bodies of water, alluding to the destruction of the environment by extractivist activities.

This piece takes as its starting point the tradition of a community in the Sierra Huasteca of eastern Mexico, which consists of spending the night one day a year naming all the things that exist so that they continue to exist at dawn. The video starts with the image and sound of a jet of water that suddenly stops, interspersed with the voices of native language speakers who pronounce ways to name water in their languages. Those words, embroidered on fabric, are part of this piece. The 22 stone sculptures reproduce the graphic representation of the sound of those same words.