PAULA DO PRADO
  • eguahé porá
  • exhibitions
    • quarai 2022
    • birth of sucuri 2022
    • a place where we can be together 2022
    • iyanla 2019
    • kalunga 2020
    • in the fibre of her being 2021
    • kuña/womxn 2021
    • pallay yuyay 2021
    • playdate 2018
    • lucky swag 2015
    • face to face 2014
    • odalisque 2014
    • sepiasiren 2012 *adult content*
    • mellorado 2012
    • adiafa/diyafa 2011
    • where yah from? 2010
    • rebirth 2008
    • I am...Black
  • projects
    • everyday ceremony
    • Uruguay Indigenous Biennale 2023
    • zines + books
      • bomba 2017
    • design isolate 2020
    • meroogal 2020
    • heartstrings 2018
    • TOAF 2016 + 2017
  • interviews + talks
  • studio do prado
  • bio + cv
  • contact
  • eguahé porá
  • exhibitions
    • quarai 2022
    • birth of sucuri 2022
    • a place where we can be together 2022
    • iyanla 2019
    • kalunga 2020
    • in the fibre of her being 2021
    • kuña/womxn 2021
    • pallay yuyay 2021
    • playdate 2018
    • lucky swag 2015
    • face to face 2014
    • odalisque 2014
    • sepiasiren 2012 *adult content*
    • mellorado 2012
    • adiafa/diyafa 2011
    • where yah from? 2010
    • rebirth 2008
    • I am...Black
  • projects
    • everyday ceremony
    • Uruguay Indigenous Biennale 2023
    • zines + books
      • bomba 2017
    • design isolate 2020
    • meroogal 2020
    • heartstrings 2018
    • TOAF 2016 + 2017
  • interviews + talks
  • studio do prado
  • bio + cv
  • contact

In the fibre of her being

My work, Habla con la Luna/Talks with the moon 2021 is included in a group exhibition "In the fibre of her being" curated by Sarah Rose at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery from 23 October 2021 to 12 February 2022. You can view excerpts of the digital zine I created for the work below and download a copy.
lunazine_pdoprado_102021.pdf
File Size: 7617 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File


Habla con la Luna

connections between song, moon and water
I had envisioned making a net. In my mind it alternated in appearance, somewhere between a giant spiderweb and a casting net as it might look in the very moment it was cast, floating and spreading out in the air before it hits the water.  Inspired by a version of the cumbia folk song “El Pescador”/The Fisherman, that Toto La Momposina performs, I was drawn to the lyrics, “habla con la luna (talks with the moon)/habla con la playa (speaks with the beach)/no tiene fortuna (has no treasure)/solo su atarraya (just a fishing net)”. Like the cycles of planting and harvesting on land, I thought about the lunar cycles, the catch and the sea. 

​So many of the folk and modern tales devalue the herstories we know birthed us. This work is a woven song to those herstories. To my motherlines etched in the rivers Congo, Nile, Quaraí, Rio de la Plata, Yaguaron and those whose names I do not know that may have flowed in or out of the Rhine or even the Somme. To the daughters of sharks, who survived because they grew powerful sharp mouths and kept going without looking back. To those that took luck into their own hands to manifest other possibilities for their children’s children.  To the weavers, makers, diviners, casters and repairers of nets who came before me and embodied the knowledge that everything is connected. This is a woven song of gratitude to all the Fisherwomen who talk with the moon, custodians of the waterways and the life held within. I sing thanks to the Herring Protectors of Sitka Alaska, the Vezo women of Madagascar, the Mujeres Trabajadoras del Mar of Mexico, the Marisqueiras of Brazil and Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen.
Picture
Excerpt from Luna Zine 2021
Picture
The background image is the rambla of the Montevideo coast line near playa ramirez where my abuelo requested his ashes be dispersed. The centre image background is of a pond at centennial park where my son and I go to visit the turtles. An outline of two sharks adapted from a Paracas textiles is overlaid the image in white lines.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Where I connect with the waters, background image is of seven mile beach in Gerroa on Dharawal country and central is bronte beach on Gadigal land
Picture
Habla con la luna detail. What do you see? Eyes and a beak? A Third eye in the centre? A uterus? Other anatomy? A jelly fish? The moon?
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • eguahé porá
  • exhibitions
    • quarai 2022
    • birth of sucuri 2022
    • a place where we can be together 2022
    • iyanla 2019
    • kalunga 2020
    • in the fibre of her being 2021
    • kuña/womxn 2021
    • pallay yuyay 2021
    • playdate 2018
    • lucky swag 2015
    • face to face 2014
    • odalisque 2014
    • sepiasiren 2012 *adult content*
    • mellorado 2012
    • adiafa/diyafa 2011
    • where yah from? 2010
    • rebirth 2008
    • I am...Black
  • projects
    • everyday ceremony
    • Uruguay Indigenous Biennale 2023
    • zines + books
      • bomba 2017
    • design isolate 2020
    • meroogal 2020
    • heartstrings 2018
    • TOAF 2016 + 2017
  • interviews + talks
  • studio do prado
  • bio + cv
  • contact