The Water Spirits 4

The series of photographs 'O espírito das águas / The Spirits of the Water' captures the most intense moments of the film 'O Peixe / The Fish', made by De Andrade in 2016 and presented at the 32nd São Paulo Biennial.

Following the style of ethnographic cinema, the artist used 16mm film to document the technique used by fishermen in a village on the northeastern coast of Brazil. It is a work that began with the artist's attempt to create a fictitious ritual. De Andrade proposed to a group of fishermen to help him tell the story of a fisherman who embraces the fish at the moment of its capture, as if they were helping the fish in its passage to death. This scene of the fish materialized an image that is as much about love as it is about extreme violence. For the artist, it speaks volumes about the limitations of the relationship between humans and nature; how we, as humans, naturalize the dominance of nature. But it can also be a general metaphor for relationships, not only with nature but also between human beings.