WAIA'MU: way of body

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“Each form of life is a collage of several species” (Coccia)

How to elaborate other possible ways of inhabiting the world through the production of fictions and non-fictions built in collaboration with other-than-human beings?
The choreography of this essay was elaborated in flows with the guaiamuns of Itaparica. This photo essay was produced at Sacatar’s
artistic residency in Itaparica, Brazil. It seeks to rethink ideas of body/community and deconstruct the idea of humanity in the Anthropocene through fabulations.
The Guaiamum or Waia’mu - from the Tupi: dark blue crab - is a species of crustacean present in almost the entire Latin American coast. Big and blue, it lives in holes that digs in the earth near the mangroves. They are of great biological and cultural importance for people living on the Brazilian coast, especially in the northeast, where there is a large presence of mangroves that are threatened by urbanisation and excessive human predation.
During the residency we sought to get closer to the Guaiamuns and their perspective, learn their choreography. Learn their “way of body” to elaborate other possible ways of inhabiting the world. An exercise on the production of fictions and non-fictions built in collaboration with other-than-human beings to deconstruct the idea of humanity, understanding the human body as a multi-specific community.

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