New Atlantic Triangulations
Ongoing research, prints, flag
I named my ongoing research New Atlantic Triangulations, through which I have been exploring and delving deeper into questions and reflections on healing, particularly through the lenses of home, memory, identity, and mental health. New Atlantic Triangulation is a term that encompasses the intersection of my artistic practices with my personal experience as a Brazilian woman of mixed African heritage, who has recently acquired Irish citizenship.
I have been linking my territories through the unity link that is my body. In order to address long-standing wounds, it becomes essential to healing our minds and souls, even knowing that capitalism plays a crucial role - usually against - in all this. How can we use this triangulation as a mechanism for healing? The notions of choice, belonging, assimilation, and replacement intersect within this context. Symbolisms exist between these layers, both explicit and implicit, that carry values and meanings, as tangible as my naturalization certificate and as mythical as Hy-Brasil*.
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The prints and the flag were produced during a residence at Cork Printmakers, in August 2022.
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I chose to work with simple shapes combined: inverted triangles to represent a progressive and matriarchal society and circles to represent Ori (our inner strength according to my ancestor Yoruba beliefs), unity and continuity. They also represent the wish for healing from transgenerational traumas.
I created a flag to visually represent the conquest of spaces and zones, establishing opportunities not given to my ancestry but reclaimed here for myself, my family and my continuity. This flag is multilayered as I am, as the territories there represented are.
I used black chiffon on the flag layers to create a shady sense of clarity with a moiré interfering with the perception. The view of the symbols changes depending on where the spectator moves, instead
of offering sharpness, as most flags do.
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Photos: Vera Ryklova
