ORBITING (Gallery text)

The story of the beginning tells us that there was a time when all people were gathered with the aim of building a single tower to reach the sky. At the summit, the last bricks were colored blue, to merge the top of the tower with the heavenly abyss. From mud, the bricks were made and then piled until God came and sent a bolt of lightning to tear down the tower and confuse everyone. From that confusion emerged the different languages and, as not being able to understand each other, people scattered about the Earth abandoning the tower in ruins. So people stretched flags over other flags that did not say anything, and they forgot, over the plain, the weave that kept them together. The ruins, broken like pottery and put back together like a puzzle, encrypted the only wisdom, leaving in the horizon assembled stairs that went up and down, leading to nowhere in order to disorient us.

Closer in time, sailing in Space after seeking for unknown forms of life, the only survivor of a crew dozes off while stirring the ship, together with who could trespass the portals of time: a cat. In different cultures, cats, mystic and wise at the same time, are the ones who can go in and out of the dimensions of life and death. In the most ancient Tarot, the card of The Force carries in it the drawing of a woman that holds the mouth of a lion with her own hands. Stripped of any utensil, she seduces it to rummage through its teeth and find the key of wisdom. Her human body, more animalized, has become mutually committed with the lion, incorporating herself to it to dance among fangs.

A while ago, a video was circulating through social media. It showed the Sun and the solar system spirally travelling to the galactic center, best known as a black hole. A spot that symbolized all the knowledge of our conscience. Behind it, a trace of stellar dust was drawn and, seen from Earth, turned us into a fading-in-time star. Among its flashes and dizzy because of the spiral, as we stand on the floor of this room, in front of us on the wall we will find multiple space windows. You might be able to distinguish the sailing crew, or planets orbiting around other planets. Travelling to the heart of the unknown, around us, remains the memory of the lion, the flags, the weave, the pottery as ruins, the vandalistic inscriptions, and the mystery that still awaits hungry in the most remote places of our existence.

Agustina Leal