Mangrove Guinea

Guinea de mangle demonstrates a recurring trend towards the creation of anthropomorphized figures in Gadiel Rivera’s ceramic work. With the head of a man, the body of a bird, and a base evoking mangrove roots, Guinea de mangle exposes Rivera’s interest in finding resonance with ancestral spirits in wildlife. The guinea fowl is native to the coast of Africa in the nation of the same name. The bird evidences the migratory links between Africa and the Caribbean. The reference to mangroves in the work’s title points to the importance of this ecosystem for marronage. Rivera’s sculpture thus invokes free movement by inhabiting forms beyond the human and representing nature’s complicity in the struggle for Black liberation.