Noara Quintana: Evenings of Water

The plant known in Brazil as Vitória-Régia (Victoria Amazonica), so named due to Queen Victoria of England, also known as Irupé (Guarani), Uapé (Tupi), or Queen of the Lakes, is uniquely situated within the flux of colonial histories, cultural appropriations and impositions that arose from the exploitation of rubber in 19th century Brazil.

In Tupi legend, Uapé was born through the night time seduction of a young girl, Naiá, by the moon. When Naiá saw the object of her love reflected in the waters of a lake, she believed that there was a path to her beloved. Entering the dark waters, she surrendered her life to this encounter and to the profound depth of the illusion. In an act of compassion, the Moon God rendered Naiá eternal the following night, transforming her into a brilliant white flower made complete by the majestic floating lily that supports her form.

Conceived as a night time installation, the work gestures to the transformation that occurs to the Vitória-Régia’s flower, which only blooms once the sun has set. Initially white and of female gender, the flower submerges itself, to be reborn as pink and masculine the following night.

In the 19th century, Vitória-Régia was transported to London’s Kew Gardens, the same botanical garden where the smuggled seeds of the have a brasilinesis rubber tree were first germinated. At Kew, gardener and architect Joseph Paxton immersed himself in a profound research of the floating lily’s structure of support. Inspired by this study, he designed London’s Crystal Palace in 1851 – a technologically innovative landmark of modern architecture- by replicating in metal and glass the functionality of the ribbed structure of the Vitória- Régia and its relationship with the water’s surface.

The work ‘Evenings of Water’, conceived for Pivô, enacts this dialogue: latex buoyant on the waters of glass, a petal, resplendent on ribbed metal.

Noara Quintana