Noara Quintana

Evenings of water and dense forest

The series Belle Époque of the Tropics by Noara Quintana has as its background the history of the rubber industrialization in North of Brazil. The so-called Amazon Rubber Boom, 1879 to 1912, was an important part of the economic and social history of the country and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, related to the extraction and commercialization of latex. Centered in the Amazon river basin, the boom resulted in a large expansion of European colonization in the area, causing cultural and social transformations that wreaked havoc upon Indigenous societies and immense environmental damage. The burgeoning cities in the region were turned into an emblem of modernity by the local elites who imported social habits and elements alluding to the European Art Nouveau aesthetics and architecture with its sinuous ornaments and organic shapes (in itself the outcome of an exoticization of non-Western cultures). Belem and Manaus were nicknamed as “Paris of the Tropics” and “Paris d’Amerique”, and what was then a motive of pride now is perceived as a somewhat kitschy melancholic heritage. 

In Evenings of water and dense forest Quintana highlights these histories by creating idiosyncratic objects like the Victoria Regia lamps and painted fabrics that create a sort of a suspended living room. The hanging works are made of natural rubber, silk, graphite, and glowing green lights, almost as if they were from a science fiction movie. The artist explains that the work critically engages with and refigures colonial practices of theft and transportation, of people, resources, histories and culture.