TANIA CANDIANI’S “GREAT BLOOD SYSTEM” AT LOCUST PROJECTS

Interested in language, sound and the afterlife of obsolete technologies, Tania Candiani has created devices that translate images, shapes, and words into sounds and music by repurposing looms, keyboards, typewriters and other old mechanical devices to create wind, chord or percussion instruments. She sees these objects as interfaces between “the soul of the machine” and other types of sensibilities, including human, animal and non-human, and often references ancestral knowledge and stories.

For the artist, these devices lie somewhere between science fiction, Victorian steam technology and the latest artificial intelligence and word processing technologies.

Waterbirds: Migratory Sound Flow, originally commissioned for the 23rd Biennale of Sydney and curated by José Roca, is a hanging “river” made with tree branches collected from a riverbank in Mexico many of which are also native to

South Florida.

Referred to by the artist as a “great blood system,” the path of these birds connects hundreds of bodies of water mapped in an installation that consists of a network of sound, air, and water. The system uses handmade reproductions of traditional pre-hispanic aerophones (clay ocarinas, shells, wooden flutes) and, at Locust Projects, includes field recordings of water birds in South Florida to create a continuous and changing chant.

The massive, suspended organic shape will be reimagined to respond to Locust Projects' architecture and reflect the waterways and migratory water bird species of the Everglades and South Florida.

Tania Candiani (1974) lives and works in Mexico City. One of the central interests in her work is the expanded idea of translation, extended to the experimental field through the use of visual, sound, textual and symbolic languages. She considers the universe of sound and the politics of listening as a tool to amplify and transform perceptions, both human and non-human. A fundamental part of her work is related to feminist policies and practices, understanding them as a communal, affective and ritual experience. Her projects unfold as interconnected bodies of work that start from research work and historical narratives, often from a site-specific context. Framed in that storytelling weaving, the moving image, sound and text come together as a recurring language in his practice. The video installation then becomes a place of enunciation of a territory.

Waterbirds: Migratory Sound Flow. Exhibition by Tania Candiani.

Locust Projects. 297 NE 67 ST, Miami, United States.

Until February 10, 2024.