Canto Llano – southeast
Ecosystem of Senses Residence. Pasto, Colombia (2023)
Sixth guitar planted, southeast orientation.
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Tree: Urapán
To Valentina Bocanegra and Oscar Salazar
The installation was made within the framework of the creative residency “Ecosistema de sentidos: arte, tradiciones y territorio”*, directed by the artists Valentina Bocanegra and Oscar Salazar. February 17 – 21, 2023. Pasto, Colombia.
Sobre el proyecto
Canto Llano is a ceremonial-sound action installed on the earth’s crust. It consists of planting a tree inside the mouth of a buried guitar. The sound installation begins with a ritual action that initiates the cycle of tree growth and guitar decomposition.
A guitar is the culmination of a handcrafted design carried out for centuries by different artisans and sound artists. It is a developing knowledge originating from a tree and its material, wood. Canto Llano presents the link between the beginning of this process and its culmination, as well as offering a poetic alliance between the development of biology and the growth in time of a work of art.
So:
What can we learn from sound if we move a little bit beyond aesthetics and acoustics? What can listening teach us when we try to hear the great cycles of the heavens, of the cosmos that saw us born, will see us die, and will surely die as well? What lessons does matter teach us with its rhythms, its frailties, its hardness, its ancient and future laws? Canto Llano is an open-air sound installation that feeds on these questions, on that beyond the sounds that occurs when we remain still and silent in the face of simplicity that nevertheless summons us. This installation, together with the accompanying ceremony, finally seeks the close: to remind us of our relative position in the changing universe.
Guitarras
The first guitar, oriented east, was planted in the city of Casilda, Argentina, on October 12, 2017.
The second guitar, south facing, was planted in the town of Nesodden, Norway, on June 5, 2018.
The third guitar, west oriented, was planted in the city of Lausanne arrêt Blécherette, Switzerland, on August 10.
The fourth guitar, north facing, was planted at Los Acantilados, Mar del Plata, Argentina, on April 18, 2021.
The fifth guitar, northeast facing, was planted in Prague, Czech Republic, October 8, 2022.
Photos
Sylvia Gómez
Guillermo Bocanegra
Martín Virgili
About the Residence
* “Ecosystem of senses: art, traditions and territory” is an artistic residency project designed to shake and inspire creators from all over the world. Located in Pasto, capital of the department of Nariño, Colombia, its mission is to present to its residents the multiple layers of meaning that make up a unique territory, linking the Andean world, the jungle and the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
For 5 days, Valentina and Oscar -the hearts behind all this- took us to tour and recognize the volcanoes and valleys of the place, telling us about the political, social, mineral and vegetable past that still resonates there. We were shown La Cocha lagoon, a huge water mirror located at 2600 meters above sea level; the Paramo – a fabulous ecosystem, origin of water and life – and we were introduced to the Frailejon, a plant that captures the “flying rivers” and lands them on the ground and from there to the other rivers that surround the mountains. The residence embraced us in ceremonial circles and made us share talks and transforming silences. We ate healthy, we played, we philosophized, we created, we dreamed of less damaged and communitarian worlds.
We participate
Sylvia Gómez
Guillermo Bocanegra
MartIn Virgili
For more information @ecosistemadesentidos
