UMA HOMENAGEM
Video, 1m23’
Festival Oferendas + Balaio Virtual
Curator: May HD
Lalá Casa de Cultura
Salvador BR
2021
In the year 2021, the Yemanjá festival in Brazil was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
As the Afro-Brazilian goddess of the sea, Yemanjá is one of the most important divinities of the Afro religious, particularly, in Salvador da Bahia, a city with the largest black population outside of Africa in the world. The celebration happens in the summer and its main characteristic is the act of offering gifts, mostly flowers, to the sea, intended to the deity.
‘t Wed is a pond between dunes, near the Dutch coast, surrounded by an evocative landscape. It was February, the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere, and at ‘t Wed, the temperature hovered around 0oC, whereas the thermometer in the pond indicated a temperature of +3oC in the water.
I brought flowers and a poem in the memory of those who perish in the pandemic, like a prayer of hope from the cold to the warm waters.
Camera: R v Lier
Soundtrack: “Cantilena, in Bachianas Brasileiras”
by Heitor Villa-Lobos
Soloist Bidu Sayão
1945 (public domain).
Odoyá, Yemanjá!
http://festivaloferendas.blogspot.com/