THE BIRTH OF URANA REMIX
2020
Video
Produced in collaboration with Darwin Marinho and Anti Ribeiro.
Presented in the context of the exhibition NIRIN - 22nd Biennale of Sydney, curated by Brook Andrews; in the exhibition More More More at TANK Shang-hai, curated by X-Zhu Nowell and Frederick Cruz Nowell; and in the online program HAU 3000, curated by Ricardo Carmona.
THE BIRTH OF URANA REMIX palpably expands upon the world of an authorial fictional and dystopic short story, written in 2017 and titled ‘The Birth of Urana.’
The protagonist in this piece evades a colonial, militant and authoritarian force by digging deep into the earth, and in doing so sets forth a material process of transition towards and integrated relationship with earthly matter itself. This story forms part of the artist’s larger practice, in which visions of the end of the world open new ways to think about inhabiting our bodies, as they structure and respond to our relationship with the natural environment. Jota Mombaça in this work envisions a body that transcends colonial binaries and expedient figurations of gender, sexuality and humanness which keep us separated from the natural world.