Singing in reverse: Auscultation of a wounded earth

Forced disappearance not only has a prolonged impact on the missing person, but also, and possibly to a greater extent, on those who await their return. The uncertainty of not knowing whether the disappeared person is alive or dead creates an unbearable state for the family searching for them. Faced with the lack of testimonies and clues that could reveal their whereabouts, I wondered who to turn to. That's when I considered the territory as a witness, as everything happens on its surface and its soil carries that memory. How can we grasp that phantom memory?

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I traversed various territories from which I extracted clay, which I then prepared and used to construct "throat instruments" inspired by pre-Columbian whistling bottles that emit a whistle when water is added inside. This whistle is the reverse song: a word in potential, a narrative told in the language of the earth and birds.

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The sound installation became a space for invocation, listening, and speech. The spiral shape symbolized the cochlea of the ear, but also represented the word. According to the Nahual codices, the word was depicted as a volute emerging from the mouth. In the center of the installation, a vessel contained rainwater as a way to "bring the beyond to the here": the water that originates in the moorlands travels through rivers until it reaches the sea, and once it evaporates, it returns to the city as rain, laden with memories, stories, and revelations.