Oceanities

On the longest night of the year, the heat rises from the earth as we walk along the weir that breaks the river's journey. The rumour of the water emerges from the silence, a small yellow light shines on the bush and then another and another - the fireflies dance and illuminate our steps. Up ahead, crickets and cicadas sing wildly. Together, insects, water and night announce the summer. Text b...

Born swimming, she now lives in a human bathtub surrounded by strange voices. The pearls dangling from the strands braided with green algae and the shells hanging from her arms tinkle. Her nails peel away layers of skin, the tattoos and the history they contain are torn away, the fish tail falls off and the pungent smell of the deep sea spreads through the house. The mermaid walks, a woman rises....

Am I the Mermaid? She calls out to her(self) and receives a cry, a plea, a reflection in the return of the projected sound wave. The mermaid sees herself in the mirror and her reflected voice appears distorted, difficult to understand. All sounds and words outside our own reality are difficult to interpret, but we continue to insist, to call out to those who are far away. I call the Mermaid. Text...

Esperar a Sereia Quantas ondas são precisas Para esquecer o que se passou Quantos mares atravessar Para largar o que se sonhou Diz-me lá velha do mar O que diz o vento norte Quantos anos vão passar Para conhecer a minha sorte Devo contar grãos de areia Acender velas num altar Esperar avistar uma sereia E a minha angústia guardar Mas a velha sentada na praia Diz que o vento se calou Seja vontade de...

Breaking through the endless motion of human activity - the laughter, the walking, the talking, typing - every once in a while you can hear it. Waves crash into boats, becoming one with the sound of a child’s laugh, the conversations of work interrupted by the sudden screech of a seagull. In places where humans have long claimed supremacy, the sounds of nature are the ones who provide the rhythm a...

The owl hoots at the right time, every day, every evening, at that moment when light and night meet. It's like a fine-tuned clock, but of its own nature, in counter-current with the rest of the world. After the hooting, the silence of human footsteps rests by the tree. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito. Cover by Jaime Silva

After a slow walk, we need to pick up the pace. Waking up for the HS2, the high-speed train about to arrive! At the future station, few trees and flowers and wandering bees remain, waiting for the next day. Silent daily life has been broken by the noise of the machines tearing up the earth to lay the iron road. The humans, who feel like the trees, insects and flowers, struggle to maintain the soun...

The tide brings the fish to the shore, men and boats follow the fish, seagulls are attracted. The net is the hungry open mouth of a non living entity engulfing life forms, smells and sounds. In the back, sea roars and critters scream, but a human-made motor overpowers all sounds. The tide is at its highest, full of life and death. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito. Cover by Catarina Gar...

Water flowing down the river meets a group of rocks... Gulfs of wind push the water towards the muddy shore... Water splashes humans on land, who joyfully play with it, embracing its freshness, its rhythms, its vigor... As water follows its many paths and has multiple encounters, the sounds of a Blue Planet come to life. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Jaime Silva & Isabel Gomes de Almeida. Cove...

Through the market grounds and the garden green walls, we walk hand on hand, step after step, crunching the earth and swelling memories. Other people, other animals, other trees, other paths, are just leafs floating around bringing the landscape well into our human existence. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito. Cover by Jaime Silva

Se eu estiver à tua espera Se eu for ao mar para te encontrar Baleia tu, espera por mim  Baleia eu, hei de cantar O teu encanto está no azul E o meu canto há de chegar Além do mar, além do tempo Baleia tu, espero encontrar E se o caminho for para a costa,  Dá meia volta e volta ao mar O teu encanto fica comigo E o meu canto vai te encontrar  Que o teu canto fica comigo E aqui espero para te encant...

Inside the room, the sounds reverberate in the walls as much as in the mind. They echo from distant times to the near future, moving the air around us. Repetitive and circular, noisy and harsh, analogue and digital, they embrace us into a familiar web of clicks, pops and bangs Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito. Cover by Jaime Silva

By the sea, the wind transforms what we hear... human dialogues, and the waving of flags echoing as the wind passes over... Suddenly, the squawking of the seagulls becomes dominant, provoking an imbalance between the wind and the direction of the voices, on their own paths. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Patrícia Sanches Carvalho, Cristina Brito & Isabel Almeida. Cover by Jaime Silva.

Below ground level, we are taken into another world. Below water level, we enter the diving capsule.  There is a conch through which you can hear the distant but constant sound of the sea. As you approach it, the air that passes through, enters and exits through the curved surfaces, the conch becoming a resonating box. The sea is close and seems even closer, just inside the shell. Sound by Jaime S...

Water flowing through the old valley, after losing its millennial path to the human revolutions, slowly finds new paths. It builds the future, renewing and flourishing a green landscape, step by step. Birds chirp and sprouts bloom, breaking the loud noise of the metal machinery.  Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito, Isabel Gomes de Almeida & Jaime Silva. Cover by Catarina Garcia

Aren’t you late? Don’t you have a meeting today? Don’t forget about that appointment. Keep moving. Have you completed all the tasks required? Have you produced enough? Keep moving. Don’t stop, keep moving. Don’t smell, don’t look, don’t listen, keep moving. The constant and unrelenting motion of modern life allows for disconnection from the sensations of the green and blue world. It conditions us...

As the heron flies over the bay, the fishes take refuge behind the rocks. The elusive manatee shows interest on the secrets the heron has to share...on the timeless whispers from the bay the heron guards. Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Isabel Gomes de Almeida. Cover by Catarina Garcia

From down deep, in the throat of time, shells move as the ghosts of the past, as the echoes of their footsteps... From the deep ocean, the waves spit their shells onto our beaches as the abandoned protections of those long gone... In the depths of our busy days, we try to listen to the deep... within the hectic buzz of today, their voices become clear, as we stop, listen and slowly come together i...

The spoken words in Portuguese from Brazil, sounding different but feeling the same, offer us the joy of existing in a plural and multi-layered world. A human voice giving voice to the non-human manatee or, as it is called locally, peixe-boi or manati or goaragoá.  Manatee / I want to swim with you / In our environment / In the territory of the Potiguara / Don't ever run away / From th...

 The manatee is seen by many eyes, and sang my many voices. Here we listen to Tupi original language (from Brazil) in the dancing sounds of an indigenous poet, and read the Portuguese words. The tongues of the natural world are more than words, they are a construction understood by us all.   Peixe boi Manati / Quero nadar com você / Em nosso ambiente / No território dos Potiguara / Não fuja jamais...

In this human world, the noise of their machines awakens both animals and spirits. No one sleeps. All of them cry. Water falls from the sky filling up empty spaces on the earth. These are the sounds of a more-than-human Anthropocene, produced by water and air, people and other animals, gears and engines.  Sound by Jaime Silva. Text by Cristina Brito & Jaime Silva. Cover by Jaime Silva.

There is a fluid line that divides the flying sounds of birds from the grounded voices of humans. The border between water and forest, boat and surface, between staying or moving, being silent or vocal, is built by the layers of all those existing in its vicinity. Each border is a decision, the border itself a construction of life and beyond. Let us live in the thin dreams tropical animal's bu...

Crossing the bay to enter the river, in search of the elusive manatees, humans of today navigate through ancient waterways. On the banks, the ruins echo chats, feelings, contacts, and memories between multiple beings. In a more-than-human landscape, they produce a continuous interweaving of timeless relations. Upstream, new and old artificial structures collide, agitating the waters and urging new...

Late afternoons have a different luminosity. The colour palette mixes the light and the dark. Creatures of the day rush to finish their affairs, critters of the night cheer the beginning of their actions. The wind calms down, and the sounds merge - people laughing and moving, birds noising, cars that horn and above them cicadas buzzing so loud one could think it’s sound’s statics instead of life. ...

Birds singing and humans chirping, making noises all around. They are the long voices and small steps running through the watery landscape. Let them go, let them walk, let them fly, let them be free. All parts of their own eco-cultural-systems, they are full members of the everlasting cosmos.  Sound by Jaime Silva. Words by Cristina Brito and Isabel Gomes de Almeida. Cover by Jaime Silva.