acurus
Digital photography, Brazil
2020

There is a mole 

on the back of the neck 

that opens.

From it emerge 

old women

Tracing sinuous lines 

through cracks

Licks of light.

In the folds of time

I plunge my head into the earth.

be a bare throat

Of sweet and sharp tongues.

Saliva is the breath of the river that flows within.

Skies of water above us.

Healing is caring

watch over and generate

crumble

recreate

In the midst of the first peak of the Pandemic, in June 2020, I found myself back at my parents' house and, suddenly, my entire family fell ill with Covid 19. The responsibility, the fear, the uncertainty – in the body alone. Maintaining sanity in times of chaos and impermanence. And in pain. Anger. Of negligence. But to resist by existing, living, imagining, fighting, roaring. How can we present in this world this body that gets sick, that heals, that dies, lives, dies, is born, with each breath that comes in and out?

I dreamed of my grandmothers, they guided me along strange, steep, difficult roads and paths. At a glance the image was a shaved head. Under an eclipsed moon, water ran down my curls. The Sementério photo series is the result of this process.