quarai 2022
Quarai is the name of one of the various rivers that forms part of a network of waterways connecting Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. Rio (river) Quarai is located to north of the Brazil/Uruguay border, it is also the name of a town in Brazil along the rivers edge. In Uruguay the river is known as Rio Cuareim. My paternal family continues to reside on both sides of rio Quarai and nearby towns. My father remembers fishing for bagre a type of catfish in the river in his youth with his older cousins, using snails from his aunt and uncles quinta for bait. I am told I visited nearby areas as a very young child including my grandfather’s birthplace, but I don’t remember. My own personal connection to Quarai is marked by temporal and geographic distance but the river is in me and I am in the river. My remembering and connecting to Quarai at a distance is made possible and facilitated by living nearby to a network of wetlands and swamplands (known as Lachlan Swamp, Centennial Parklands) on Gadigal Land.
This work is part of my ongoing conversations with Rio Quarai, with the African Bantu Kongo ancestors that found themselves reliant on the river and the Charrúa, Arachan and Guarani ancestors who had always been there. Quarai is a weaving in progress. It is intersecting narratives, hicotea thinking and the various species of turtles, lizards, snakes and other life that inhabits the river. It is the Bantu story of the lizard and the chameleon, messages and timing. It is a reference to the cerritos and the sambaqui shell and burial mounds that hold ancestral memory. It is a remembering in thread, pebble and clay.
Quarai is currently showing as part of "Reading Into Things" @PariAri until 12 March 2023. It was first shown as part of "Studio Creep" at Backspace Gallery. Images by Document Photography
This work is part of my ongoing conversations with Rio Quarai, with the African Bantu Kongo ancestors that found themselves reliant on the river and the Charrúa, Arachan and Guarani ancestors who had always been there. Quarai is a weaving in progress. It is intersecting narratives, hicotea thinking and the various species of turtles, lizards, snakes and other life that inhabits the river. It is the Bantu story of the lizard and the chameleon, messages and timing. It is a reference to the cerritos and the sambaqui shell and burial mounds that hold ancestral memory. It is a remembering in thread, pebble and clay.
Quarai is currently showing as part of "Reading Into Things" @PariAri until 12 March 2023. It was first shown as part of "Studio Creep" at Backspace Gallery. Images by Document Photography
