Habito: poetics of a small exodus
a site-specific installation about the poetics of a small exodusThe “Habito” project explores the theme of memory through a series of site-specific installations that revisit some of the intimate impressions left on Gessica by her former home in Guapimirim (Rio de Janeiro – Brazil). This place where she lived for a significant part of her life becomes the backdrop for a creative and sensitive investigation of memories, whether experienced in solitude or with family.
Through four installations, simply named “Houses”, the aim is to somehow return her memories to the place that once belonged to them. In doing so, the author came to realize that she was also creating new memories.
In the final years of living there, the house was attacked by a species of ants called Nylanderia Fulva, whose kind destroys electrical wires, clothing, and walls. In a place as vast as theirs, eliminating all the ants was nearly impossible, provoking the family to abandon the residence.
One year after their departure, Géssica returns to the place she once called home for so many years, only to find that the ants are no more. They needed people to exist. Today, all that remains is the shell of what was once a home.
And from this point on, her four installations take shape , represented here in video format.
House of light
Lights and connections handmade by Géssica and her father take place in the living room that was once inhabited by the entire family, with flickering lights due to the ants destroying the wires.
This installation is linked to the House of Sound through an arduino controlling the flickering light in harmony with the tone produced by sound in the other room.
house of sound
Two entirely abandoned bedrooms and a bathroom filled with the sounds of a family Sunday. A house initially only observed through its windows, inhabited solely by the essence of sound. Just as the hornets residing there teach us that sound is also a form of presence
House of time
The orange tree becomes fragments of the past glued to the present. The suspension of time viewed live. Alongside the static image of the oranges suspended in the air stuck on a wire, it rains. It only rain on the orange tree. A piece of memory of storms on the balcony, a fragment of life that once existed there. All the rains witnessed and lived through, replayed in a fragment. All the time that has passed, paused
house of opposites
The pool was a place for contemplation and immersion. Detergent was the only useful thing to kill the ants. A bottle of detergent is suspended at a great height, dripping and ‘cleaning’ the greasy mess of the now dirty pool.
That which cleans, over that which is dirty. That which is used to exterminate over that which brings imagination. That which gave us time over that which makes time pass. Reflections of opposites, united, becoming something new.