“IMPRESSIVE MUD SCULPTURES"

THE MANGROVE AND THE CREATION OF A NEW SYMBOL-SPACE

Abstract

This text reveals different images of the mangrove throughout time. The mangrove, once a thriving environment and a metaphor for diversity, underwent radical change. Today a few crustaceans inhabit it. Its space is taken mainly by garbage. In the 1990’s, however, it was appropriated by Manguebeat (Mangrove beat) as a new symbol-space. A travel in time displays multiple visions of the mangrove captured through the eyes of artists from different disciplines. Painting, tapestry, lithography, photography, cinema, literature, or music simultaneously stir up new and old Northeasts. Going through them here means highlighting the Manguetown (Mangrove town) that sprung from Manguebeat, in which a “satellite dish stuck in mud” symbolizes the city of Recife.