"Closeness" speaks of the fabric of materials that constitute us and the lands that inhabit us. It explores a weave of textures, aromas, and sounds, of music and voices, of gestures and words that name our existence. It is, in turn, a return to the distant land of my ancestors and an encounter with a sum of memories that nest in the body, an almost ritual celebration of that which identifies us.

In the face of an experience that deeply moves me, I need to draw upon a multiplicity of resources to shape the artistic project I set out to create. Immersed in the geography of Cantabria, in the village of Tagle and then in the Valle de Liendo - my paternal place of origin and a land of childhood recollections when visiting with my family - I use the camera on my cell phone to record my body in motion. My own written and sung voice becomes a tool. I wander, immerse myself, and distance myself, contemplating the strength of that nature and the rootedness within me; I palpate it. I weave an object with threads and remnants I find along the way, needing to create a fabric, a red thread enters like veins, a sign of its visceral constitution. I make use of that object as a support for my actions: I play, dance, flow in that nature that is a part of me, and I rediscover it.

Project developed within the framework of NAT - Residency in Art in Nature - Tagle, Spain, coordinated by Andrea Juan and Gabriel Penedo Diego - June 2022.

Fragments of the Basque popular song "Un Inglés vino a Bilbao" (Los Chimberos) and "Me peina el Viento los cabellos" (Horacio Guaraní) can be heard.

Acknowledgements: To Liana Strasberg and Andrea Juan for their generous contribution of some of the film and photographic records, to Purita for her stories, and to the anonymous voices that joined. To my father for his love for his land.

Video and Sound Editing: Maxi Sánchez Haruf.
NAT - Residency in Art in Nature - Tagle, Spain
Coordinated by Andrea Juan and Gabriel Penedo Diego

Closeness
Worn metal cowbells
A belfry of deep and hushed sound
Dry voices, rough whispers
Brays and lowing
Always the cows, their scent of dung
and roses

Aromas
Flavors of seafood and mountain stew

Gathering flowers, apples, and pears
A cave in the mountains
Stable and stacks of dry grass,
laughter and tears
other songs
Red tiles amidst green hollows
of gentle rises and falls.
Behind, as you said, "the Massif of gray living rock."

Fierce sea
with compact and ferocious motion
Foaming breakers
Transparency in blues

Caress and tumult
Majestic rocky caprice

Something intangible returns in this air
envelopes me
rises from my feet
Small village of immense nature.
It brings you.
Your joy breathes in these lands

"They say you're leaving, leaving, and you never quite leave here."
(fragment from a Spanish folk song)

María Emilia Marroquín
Tagle, June 2022