MAZENETT QUIROGA
Transatlantic journey / 3´15´´ /Digital video / 2019
27 million tons of dust from the Sahara desert (the Arabian desert is an extension of the Sahara on the Arabian peninsula) go directly to the Amazon rainforest carrying the phosphorus which the Amazon rain forest depends to flourish. From this, we collected soil from the Colombian Amazon, then we brought it to UAE and dumped it in the desert, returning it to its place of origin. With this looping gesture, which is a video recorded performance, we want to evidence the invisible links between these two apparently different ecosystems, which are in fact totally interdependent. We also want to point out how we, as human beings, are also active geological agents of mineral transport.
"In the natural world, all ecosystems are interconnected and inter-depended in multiple ways. Every so often a cloud of dust from the Sahara desert travels to the Amazon rainforest and fertilizes it. This dust is composed of seashells that were moldered millions of years ago when the African desert was covered by the sea. Linear time is an obtuse notion, if we understand it from these mechanisms of natural interaction. Native American cultures understood these issues from their own technologies; shamans, mamos, abuelos and sages valued mineral elements in relation to the divine, that is, as part of a universal system. "Beatriz Lopez