Only after the Rain

From the geological memories encountered during a research trip to Serra da Capivara National Park, in Piauí, to the notebook that holds her observational drawings, artist Rebeca Carapiá proposes the sculptural installation Only after the Rain for one of Inhotim’s lakes. Drawing on that arid territory that was once water, the works trace the movement of the wind itself, carrying what came before into a time opening toward what is yet to come.

In Only after the Rain, Carapiá joins the waters of Brazil’s deep Northeast, now the site of the celebrated archaeological park, to the waters of Cidade Baixa, a peripheral region of Salvador and the artist’s home territory, marked by waterlogging and floods. Commissioned by Inhotim, the large-scale installation marks a singular moment in her practice by bringing the everyday labor of twisting iron into the museum’s metalworking studio.

Understanding the artwork as working-class labor, and questioning which bodies are socially permitted to inhabit these environments of creation and physical force, are central to Rebeca’s investigation. Through her engagement with iron, her artistic production takes place at the intersection of language, conflict, geography, and their many narratives. Her research interests materialize in sculpture, copper on canvas, drawings, installations, prints, texts, and objects.

In keeping with her studies of the body in transit and its belonging in the world, Carapiá offers a valuable critical reflection on debates concerning gender, environmental racism, and the power relations between discourse and the word. Rebeca Carapiá’s practice thus establishes a cosmology with the territories through which she moves, making her work a house that safeguards the memory of water.