Tejiendo la Anemoia
Anemoia:
[noun, neologism]
A term coined to describe a sense of nostalgia for a time or place one has never experienced.
Tejiendo la Anemoia is a project born from samples of Earth matter collected in Venezuela by María Elena Pombo in 2023, during her first return home after an eight-year absence.
The series explores her encounters with territories she had never previously visited, but that nonetheless lived in her memories. Icons of Venezuela that shaped her sense of belonging despite physical distance.
The project is composed by a video, a book set, and four sculptures made from water and arenisca (sandstone) collected at Canaima National Park in southeastern Venezuela. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park is part of the ancient Guiana Shield, one of the world’s oldest geological formations. Canaima is renowned for its tepuis, flat-topped mountains, and dramatic waterfalls. The samples were gathered during Pombo’s visit to the territory, conducted in dialogue with Pemón community members.
These materials were transformed into yarn by pulling from molecular gastronomy recipes that have been appropriated by the bio-textile world to make plastics from algae. Pombo reappropriates these recipes as a way to summon the Venezuelan territory she no longer inhabits. Transformation itself becomes a method of re-connection. These yarns will be woven into three distinct sculptures, each shaped by the material and the landscape from which it was sourced.
The series is a conceptual counterpart to Pombo’s earlier series, Tejiendo la Morriña, which centers territories she explored intimately while growing up in Venezuela. While Morriña is grounded in recollection, an embodied memory, Tejiendo la Anemoia engages projection, a constructed memory. Both series explore Venezuelans’ connection to their country’s nature and the nostalgia, real or imagined, experienced by those who no longer inhabit it.
12/01/2023: kowamä-pe (12/01/2023: at sunset)
A video in conversation with Shanayaa and Eilismar, two local teenage girls, while exploring the nature around Canaima Lagoon, the girls talk with Pombo about their Pemón cosmovision.
Video, 8mm Digital Hi8
00:03:08
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
Tejiendo el Kerepakupai Vená (Weaving the Kerepakupai Vená) uses water collected at the foot of Kerepakupai Vená, the world’s tallest waterfall, otherwise known as Salto Ángel (Angels Falls), which flows from the top of the Auyán-tepui.
Its name, in the Pemón language, means “waterfall of the deepest place.”
The piece was woven following a vertical format to replicate the verticality of the waterfall.
(2023 - 2025)
Water from Angel Falls, Brown Algae Extract, Glycerine
Agua del Salto Ángel, Extracto de Alga Marrón, Glicerina
Variable: 18cm x 18cm x 230cm (7” x 7” x 92”)
Tejiendo el Auyán-tepui et al. (Weaving the Auyán-tepui et al) uses arenisca (sandstone) from Auyán-tepui and neighboring tepuyes, two-billion-year-old geological plateaus unique to the Guiana Shield that are home to flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth.
For millions of years, wind and water have eroded these tepuis, shedding into pink sand that now lines the rivers and shores below, such as Laguna de Canaima and the foot of Kerepakupai Vená, where the arenisca samples were gathered.
The piece was woven in a square format to replicate the nature of this type of formation.
(2023 - 2025)
Sandstone from Canaima, Brown Algae Extract, Glycerine, Water
Arenisca de Canaimal, Extracto de Alga Marrón, Glicerina
Variable: 25cm x 25cm x 200cm (10” x 10” x 82”)
Tejiendo la Laguna uses water collected at the Laguna de Canaima, a lagoon where rivers converge and feed into the lagoon through falls such as Hacha, Golondrina, and Ucaima.
The piece was woven following a horizontal format, to replicate the horizontality of the lagoon.
(2023 - 2025)
Water from Canaima Lagoon, Brown Algae Extract, Glycerine
Agua de la Laguna de Canaimal, Extracto de Alga Marrón, Glicerina
Variable: 12cm x 12cm x 200cm (5” x 5” x 82”)
‘15 Extracciones’ (‘15 Extractions’), a piece conformed by 15 plastic vials containing arenisca and water from Canaima, each counting time since 2011.
(2023 - 2025)
Water from Canaima Lagoon, Water from Angel Falls, Sandstone from Canaima, Plastic Vials, Iron Nail
Agua de la Laguna de Canaima, Agua del Salto Ángel, Arenisca de Canaima, Contenedores Plásticos, Clavo
2cm x 3,5cm x 100cm (¾” x 1 ⅜” x 39”)
Book set
