With her exhibition “Meruntö: In the house of the spirits”, the artist and ecologist Lucía Pizzani invites us to participate in a ritual of memory and recovery of knowledge about coexistence with and in nature. Through a selection of solar prints, photographs on paper and fabric, and ceramic-based sculptures, she honors age-old spiritual practices and converts the gallery space into a temple to Meruntö, a cosmic energetic force derived from the sun that the indigenous Pemon tradition of South America holds. be found in all living organisms.
Rooting his practice in the Pemon philosophy, the artist evokes idols representing the invisible forces of nature. For jobs like totem animal2022, and Felino Totem, 2022, she made the textured surfaces by printing clay sourced from the UK with Mexican corn cobs. These objects were then mounted on four pedestals arranged with a ceremonial air in the center of the room. To create his works, Pizzani often uses plants and materials from different territories – here, the ear of corn – to symbolize a syncretism of geographies. This strategy, among others, allows her to evoke the ways in which natural ecosystems have been affected by a global history of colonialism, trade and migration.
Flanking the walls, the photographic series ‘Tactile Botanica’, 2023, captures the artist’s own hand holding various tropical plants that were dispersed to and from South America, such as bananas, eucalyptus and Asian palms. . The gestures depicted are, according to Pizzani, performative acts of amorous embrace. If they reflect on the damage caused to ecosystems by humanity, they also recognize the inseparability of man and nature, linked by the force of Meruntö, and thus launch a call for a return to ancestral practices of care.
