Katy'taya Catitu Tayassu is an animist* artist whose origins go beyond Brazil and France.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
She was born on April 14 and the sun was shining, but the year 1966 itself was confined by a very hostile dictatorship. Ethnic, cultural, political and economic blindness had forged different forms of exclusion, mainly on the Mestizo, African and Native American populations. Katy’taya’s experience of trauma and the brutal power of denial has resulted in the recreating of essential vital connections becoming her second nature.
Katy’taya lives in the body of a woman, whose soul is profoundly connected to forests, minerals and cosmic mysteries.When she closes her eyes, certain frequencies tickle her ears and she can recognise lights in the sounds; Listening, perceiving, feeling, seeing, touching and also taming the tastes of sounds have become her daily explorations. Is she a synesthete? Not exactly. Her animist art is rooted in the life of trees and in metaphysical phenomena. Her performative actions entitled ‘ARBOReusement’ integrate the animist and eco-therapeutic consciousness. They are inspired by the movements of the trees and animated by sounds that go beyond habitual sonic perception. Katy’taya also explores the alchemy between objects, bodies, frequencies, vibrations, temperatures, movements and energies, and thus was born her “Metaphysics of Sounds”, which oscillates between light and colours, both resonant and dissonant. Over the years, Katy’taya has been crossing the thickness of the nights, seeking manifestations of sonic lights and new mysteries between the sacred spirits of the Earth and the supra-terrestrial beings.
*Animist Art is the most ancient art form – eminently extra-sensory and extra-lucid. People who practice Animism have perceptions which allow them to move past any material, tangible, physical and visible limits in order to listen, to see and to reconnect (very differently) with elements relating to metaphysical, imponderable and invisible realms.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
GREEN STAR (2023)
‘Green Star’ is a new animist and artistic creation by Katy’taya Catitu Tayassu.
This soundscape celebrates the telluric and ethereal forces present at the intra-terrestrial and intra-oceanic levels of the planet. Designed to be listened to through headphones, the work invites us, as the artist explains, “to feel the sensory effect of the sound movements
‘Green Star’ is a new animist and artistic creation by Katy’taya Catitu Tayassu. This soundscape celebrates the telluric and ethereal forces present at the intra-terrestrial and intra-oceanic levels of the planet. Designed to be listened to through headphones, the work invites us, as the artist explains, “to feel the sensory effect of the sound movements which are also present between grains of the sand of the desert, in the dance of the wind, in the waves caused by a storm and in the vertiginous noises of the nights.” The acceleration of the frequencies and, at times, the acoustic compressions, represent the combination of forces between natural elements and atmospheric responses. ‘Green Star’ is also a tribute to ‘uMoya’ and to the various links of interdependence between visible and invisible forces, with all ‘sound colours’ revealing the energy of earthly movements. ‘Green Star’ is Katy’taya Catitu’s personal way of celebrating earthly resilience. It is her animist way of colouring this Biennial and of celebrating this event with the Liverpool Biennial team and the public. This sound sculpture is the metaphysical imprint of Katy’taya Catitu, amongst the other invited artists for this edition. It is a sound painting and a spiritual perception, dedicated to the freedom of a new consciousness and symbiosis.
GREEN STAR (2023)
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Katy'taya Catitu Tayassu, GREEN STAR, 2023.