Inhabiting New Worlds

Artwork of the Month | May

Vitoria Mendes

To be born and to grow up in a country where 11.3 million people can’t read nor write really makes you think. Perhaps it makes you think of the world they could be missing by not being able to do so. And perhaps it makes you think of the world you miss daily by assuming yours might be richer because of written literature. And don't forget the exercise of writing, which intimately, is nothing besides one talking to oneself. Being able to touch someone with inanimate words, which then are made alive when someone reads them, is truly unbelievable. Imagine then being able to touch those 11.3 million that read and write in gestures and languages beyond reach. They do not suppress their sensibility and can reach the sun, feel the nature, and caress the clouds when water is needed. These moments, when I attempt to communicate in these languages, are the moments when I feel most alive. 

I was named after one of the strongest plants in the Amazon Rainforest. Sowing these plants is not only my way of communicating with the imagery of my memories, but it is also my way of rejecting conventional means of communication which falsely make us assume that reading and writing words is the only way of inhabiting new worlds.