BENÉ FONTELES
“Temple Time, Temple Time” 2018
A circular installation with six 19th century English iron columns topped by stones found on the property. They support the iron sculptures themselves, symbols of African culture, seven baobabs, and various medicinal and aromatic plants... The work is to be regularly activated by performances involving the Usina de Arte neighbors and visitors.
The work “Temple Time, Temple Time” is a tribute to the African people who were humiliated and enslaved in the sugarcane mills during colonization. Now, the symbols of their Orixás triumph in the capital stones over the English iron columns of a country that both enslaved and “colonized” cultures. They triumph like samba and other arts not only in the so-called Brazilian popular culture, but through the voice of its African descendants and the mestizo people of Brazil.
The cast iron of the columns reminds us of the Orixá Ogum, the lord of wars and demands and blacksmith in the form of many instruments for agricultural use, for war and other crafts. The columns also remind us of artifacts made industrially for the construction of sugarcane plantations throughout the Northeast and speak to the manufacturing memory and historical heritage of this culture, which was a fundamental factor in the economic and cultural formation of Pernambuco. The stones, which are capitals of cast iron columns and correspond in position to each baobab, represent the strength and presence of the Orixá Xangô, lord of the mountains, of primordial strength and justice. The Orixás' tools are their symbols, their poetical logos. The tools trigger or access the energies of the spirits of the entities represented here and seated on the stones: Exu, who opens the paths and the entrance to the work; Ogum, the warrior who rules the Exu’s and protects his faithful; Oxóssi, who rules and protects the forests; Ossain, who plants and harvests the herbs for healing and spices; Oxumaré, the rainbow entity, represented by two serpents, symbols of wisdom. The tools are used in Candomblé in offerings of food and drink and other ornaments to ask or thank the Orixás for graces obtained. They are the fusion of signs and symbols of the cult of the traditions of African cultures that merge with the new forms
Bené Fonteles
Bragança, Pará, Brazil, 1953
He currently lives and works in Minas Gerais, Brazil
Brazilian activist, artist, writer, art curator, poet, shaman, and composer. He also produces works linked to postal art and research of new artistic expressions. Ecological militancy is an outstanding characteristic of his work, and he is the creator of the “Movimento Artístico pela Natureza” (Art Movement for Nature), which since 1986 has promoted ecological awareness and environmental education through art. Much of his work dialogues with the aesthetics and poetics of indigenous cultures.
