silêncio pro som
2022

The Ayvú rapyta is a compilation of oral myths of the Mbyá-Guarani people - a subgroup of the Guarani Indigenous nation inhabiting the south-central region of South America, on the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. It is mostly composed of narrative texts that report the appearance of the creator and a cosmogony that is interspersed with hymns, prayers, messages, healing rituals and social norms.

According to the cosmogony, the creator god Nhamandú (Ñande Ru) tenondé, who after manifesting himself, is manifested in the unfolding of the pillars of creation. He first embodies Mborayu, which can be understood through the concepts of love, solidarity and reciprocity. Nhamandú is presented as the hummingbird, and its manifestation becomes the Grande Som Primeiro (First Great Sound), suggesting that creation is also a song.

Brazilian-Indigenous writer Kaká Werá Jecupé translated the term ayvu as ‘language’ and ‘being’ in his publication Tupã Tenondé. According to Jecupé, in Guarani thought, “being and language, soul and word, are one and the same. The word ayvu expresses the spirit as a living sound, the first breath-light, that is eternal in each individual, that vivifies the body and manifests itself in the human realm under the skin of words, through the breath that fills it.”

Drawing from the cosmogony of the Mbyá-Guarani, silêncio pro som imagines that sound, which is born through a breath, resides in the obscure continent of silence. A sound that is yet to exist, yet to be born. From this thought, I imagine that place is where silence resides. I see place as the moment before the spoken word, in its sonority, in its ritualistic force of rhythm and sound. Place is the moment before creation is birthed, and this combined to corporeal expressions, enables the surging of a sensorial, physical experience.