Natal, RN, Brazil, 1991
Waterwill, 2021-2022
colour video with sound, 11’09”
Collection of the artist
Courtesy the artist and of Galeria Martins&Montero
The video is shown with Portuguese subtitles, followed by a version with English subtitles.
Jota Mombaça works with residues: first of all, the residues of actions and performances they carry out and which result in partial records in the form of paintings, installations, videos or drawings. Residues are also the earth, dust or mud that their work incorporates as source material, as substance or as pigment. And ultimately, there are the residues of history, what was left behind from the past that we don’t want to deal with anymore: the excrescences, the filth and the pain, which are not side-effects of historical processes of colonisation and capital, but their very essence.
The video Waterwill follows a series of actions in which large pieces of fabric are submerged in water at various locations, developing an underwater archeology of each of those places. The images of these textiles appear in the video accompanied by words and sounds that tell us about the movements of people traversing geographies that are as much political as they are sentimental.