Modernity made us believe that reason, science, progress, and human autonomy were the only tools paving the way to a better world. Forged in a context of profound changes in Europe, this concept erased the knowledge of non-European, rural, and women’s communities, relegating them to the realms of superstition and mysticism. In her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Gloria Anzaldúa presents the concept of border knowledge, something that does not entirely belong to one side or the other but inhabits the space between them. She suggests that this type of knowledge is flexible, adaptive, and potentially transformative, as it arises from the complexities and challenges of living in constant movement between distinct worlds. The term “border” is both a cultural and identity metaphor and a reference to a specific geographic reality: the physical border between Mexico and the United States, a vibrant region generating complex and ambiguous identities. I take the liberty of transporting this border to the Atlantic, a territory linking three continents and through which the largest flow of human and non-human beings, as well as objects, occurred from the 16th century onward. An ocean that both connects and separates Brazil and Portugal.
Atlantic Between Us, the current exhibition, highlights the chromatic and conceptual dialogue between works by the Gelli sisters (Alice and Gabi), created in Rio de Janeiro, and those by Daniel Mattar, made in Lisbon, showcasing ways of locating oneself in the world. The Gelli sisters draw on knowledge passed down by their grandmothers: manual techniques, sayings, and memories, poetic tools for situating oneself in life and the cosmos. The use of recyclable plastic not only adds a sense of sustainability and respect toward the oceans but also evokes the cyclical movement of matter. As they reconnect with the matriarchs of their family, the artists recreate horizons, shifting skies, and figures that make us see maps, echoing Ailton Krenak’s assertion that the future is ancestral.
For a while, Daniel Mattar’s photographic works hinted at volumetric and abstract cartography. Now, these elements are explicit in his new creations. The artist began working with ceramics and pigments, which give a three-dimensional aspect to his paintings. The geographic coordinates locate us midway between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, while sculptures attached to the canvases, extending from them, evoke islands and archipelagos formed by volcanic activity (such as the Azores). Like volcanic islands, ceramics originate from the fusion of earth, water, and fire, and, when subjected to high temperatures, shift from a malleable state to a hardened form, just as magma solidifies into rock.
Blue permeates nearly all the works here, becoming a kind of chromatic border territory. Several shades are present in this selection, such as indigo, an ancient and symbolic pigment extracted from plants like Indigofera tinctoria, with roots in various cultures, particularly African, Indian, and Indigenous American. Associated with intuition and connection to the spiritual—beyond the night sky and deep sea—this shade of blue positions us in a time-space beyond Western rationality, in a vibrating border, in a mestizo knowledge. A reminder that we were never truly modern.
Cristiana Tejo
