Los jóvenes olvidaron sus canciones o Tierra de fuego (Parte II)
16.11.2024 In Portugal, where I come from and where Gabriel Chaile lives, there is just one word for the Earth, the land, the soil and the ground: Terra. Planet is terra. Homeland is terra. Compost is terra. Dry land, as distinct from sea or air, is terra. To belong to the planet is to be terrestre. To land is to aterrar and to bury enterrar. An aterro is a landfill, the negation, a-, of terra, the land destroyed. Terracota is baked earth. Terra is both place, space and matter. It is the substance and concept that makes coming together possible: the becoming of beings, the shaping of things, the emergence of places and experiences. Terra is the primordial substance out of which we come and to which we will eventually return.There is an interesting confluence between the multiple meanings of terra and the ways in which Gabriel Chaile expresses his belonging to a land that is his, a planetary terra that is ours, and the muddy, earthly, telluric substance with which he materialises much of his work. Through his hands, terra assumes one and many shapes, all distinct, all entangled. This relationship between Chaile’s plastic engagement with ancestral figurations associated to his homeland in Northern Argentina, the capture of syncretic traces of indigenous identity from various civilizations and the use of adobe as a basic element that structures and shapes his creations is what makes his practice so relevant and unique. The faces of his characters, their elongated eyes, mysterious expressions and delicate hands hugging stylised bodies bear striking affinities with Minoan, indigenous American and Polynesian figurations. The fact that they all emerge out of such bare substances as mud, water and straw only enhances a syncretic approach that connects the soil, the world and the Earth.Extract from the text by Filipa Ramos
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