I arrived in Chaco in August 2023, thanks to the MONTE residency. It has been almost two years since I started trips and residencies within the Argentine territory with the purpose of researching and articulating the different points of connection that emerge across this vast land we inhabit — a map that unfolds all of the possible connections. Tracing species that sprout in one place and also in another, plants that survive both the stifling heat of the north and the dry winds of the Pampas.

A word, a recipe that is concocted in a house made of clay bricks and that five hundred kilometres away is repeated in another, with some local variation, of course, but almost identical, almost stubborn. There is something about identity — whether we are talking about a territory, a body, or many bodies — that we can qualify as persistent, something related to insistence; I love the word tenacity (porfiadez in Spanish). This which insists, resists, and provokes, which at times seems to have to surrender to the voracity of a world or a certain world that advances wanting to extinguish all kinds of unique identity. Such as a characteristic mark in the fur, a river that disobeys and floods both in erratic and aspirational directions, the colour brown — whether in our skin or dyeing and shaping a stream — the fox as an archetypal animal, which runs winding along almost all routes, which after hours and days of absence we could consider it extinct, and then against all odds, in the middle of the road on a stormy night, it reappears, solitary, prodigious, unexpected.

In our attempt to domesticate behaviours and species, it is clear how far we are or want to be from the native and spontaneous traits that identify us, and it is towards them that I go, in a kind of eternal council and dance with my identity and history, both individual and collective. I did not set out to do these things in a premeditated way; suddenly, at the age of thirty-five, I found myself living and working for a month in a house almost identical to the one my parents built where I was born, immersed in the middle of the Buenos Aires wilderness. I was born in Tres Arroyos, in the south of the Buenos Aires province, and both areas share a similar biome; eastern humid Chaco and depressed Chaco in the Pampas region, the fox and the reeds that keep reappearing time and time again, only in this case, they appeared bringing with them other things, other revelations.

In my experience in the Chaco wilderness, I was able to delve into a very complex world of alliances, signals, and warnings, a scenario that is not really a scenario and that at times seems to push us outward or at least to the side as human beings; an agreement of coexistence of which we are part by cautiously staying on the sidelines. One of the best things we can do, and one of the best perspectives we can have of this, is to position ourselves on the periphery, to also allow ourselves to doubt this concept we have forged. A place or site, not as a performative event that we attend and merely contemplate as spectators, not as a distant landscape that outlines our contour without engaging us, no; you can be inside the wilderness by just being near, orbiting around it, and that way you can do a lot for its existence and continuity.

The wilderness, as a habitat, dismantles the notions we bring of presence and edge. Beyond the rampant deforestation and the advancing agricultural border, and beyond the lack of implementation of environmental, heritage, and preservation policies, the wilderness exists. Upside down, with monkeys that live and move only on the treetops, with birds zigzagging low, rustling the foliage and hopping on the ground, with snakes and spiders that climb up and down, carrying and making a network of webs, threads, and lianas, all of this alters our sense of direction, things never seem to be what they are, there is a rhythm carried by songs, stealthy movements and agreed silences among different species that seem to conspire strategically so that from the outside, one cannot distinguish one animal from another and instead perceives a large living mass or system that moves and breathes and operates together, a signal sent from one end that slides and reaches the other by tensioning the ends, traversing different heights, and deceiving its path to anyone who is inattentive, subtle messages that reach their destination like effective spears. A mixture of textures and resonances that seem to have no rest or exact quality, sight and touch are confused with what is audible, tall grass and rushes like lines drawn with graphite and chalk, thorns, tangle, scrapes, squeals, and whispers, looking without knowing where; beginning to guide ourselves by other senses, feeling with our hands around and relying on different supports, not just our own because sight simply starts to fall short, and our steps become slow, delayed in our attempt to advance through the tendrils of the vines, the thorns, the branches, the hum.

In El Impenetrable, there's not much more to do than stand modestly to the side, and even then, in the solitude of being the only human person remaining there for hours, it is glimpsed, smelled, heard loudly, and appreciated: in the wilderness, you are never alone. The Indigenous peoples understand it this way, using sound and rhythm as a primary instrument to connect with/interpret the space they inhabit, sound generated by the human voice and accompanied by instruments constructed with natural elements such as wood or fibers extracted from certain native species of the terrain. Simultaneously, the terrain and these species are constantly threatened by deforestation, the advance of monoculture, etc., sad etc.

Before embarking on the trip, I heard an interview with a member of the Bora community — a community located further up in the Amazon rainforest — who said: “If the rainforest dies, our language dies.” I spoke with Fabiana, a fellow landscapist who, I discovered, is also an ethnomusicologist. She suggested that I speak with her friend Rosario, who has been working with Qom communities in the Chaco for years. Rosario explained to me, among many things, that in the Qom language, there is no specific word for the term ‘music’ or the idea of coming together to create such a thing because, under their worldview, music is already happening everywhere. Once I arrived at MONTE and talked to Patricio — a professor of agronomy and a culture trainer for the Guarani — he told me something similar happens with the term ‘nature’; this idea we have constructed does not have an exact translation in their native language because the concept as such does not fit; for the Guarani voice, nature, like music, is already expressing itself everywhere, and it is what makes us, what we are.

I remain a little still, rather restless; my practice until now has been mainly within the framework of the visual arts, the discipline from which I create my records, processes, or even from which I reinterpret these experiences in which I embark. What to do if the nature of this place that calls me, resides, and manifests itself in the sound field, making my idea, my perception of the reach of sight find its limit, waver, totter? What kind of pieces should I develop next in my intention to speak, translate, and take this habitat I found, so unique and ambivalent, undeniably strong on the inside, and yet extremely delicate in its context, to other places?

Néstor, an artist and environmental activist, explains the tangled web orchestrated by the vines, the climbing and creeping plants, the chaguares, the caraguatá, the roots, the fungi, the moss, and the mold; when we talk about the deforestation that takes place in the Chaco and takes everything with it, it is not only about protecting or planting some native trees as is done in certain areas, trying to repair the damage; these trees alone, without the ‘weeds’ that are to be ‘cleared’ around them, will inevitably fall in a few years because this soil, so rich in connections and so peculiar in its structure, where at least three or four expressions of ecotones converge; grassland and thorn scrub becoming gallery forest and wetland; if we remove the jungle characteristic, its braids of vines and thorns clinging from above, then it begins to fall apart, becoming dry and bare. And the tree branches above, by themselves, without their friends to connect or nourish them, without more animals or bugs that can circulate there, clinging to them, making them soft and passable, harden, break, fall. This way, a character is slowly erased from the map, a landscape, a narrative. A tree does not stand on its own, no, and in the wilderness, again, you are never alone. If we stay there in silence, if we learn to walk with a light step, as this terrain suggests, we may see guazunchos pass by our side, a yacaré, a jabirú.

The Tragadero River is one of the last rivers in the area without pollution, and it is from where the Indigenous women of the Wichi, Qom, and Moqoit communities extract the totora reeds with which they make their wickerwork. This river is named this way because its muddy bottom literally swallows certain bodies that try to cross it, especially the heaviest ones, such as animals introduced to the territory for exploitation by livestock: cows, pigs, horses. Exotic species that we introduced and tried to adapt to this environment and that, unlike the natives of the Chaco wilderness, do not have long legs or tails or wings as extensions to quickly escape from a swampy area.

Walking along its bank, I found many cow and other mammal bones poking out of the mud; this is how sad the world we have created for certain species can be on one side of a border that we drew, and on the other side. Even so, chainsaws and construction and destruction tools can be heard in the distance, deforestation approaches, and the horizon is in dispute; when suddenly the machines fall silent, the songs of the thousands of species that make up this place appear, are detected, and are discerned. Juan Sorrentino, a Chaco sound artist and director of the residency that hosted me, brings to the conversation a concept that I was unaware of and a way to appreciate the richness and complexity of an ecosystem that had been unthinkable to me until now, and that is indeed crucial when it comes to preserving a natural place; acoustic ecology.

Just as protecting only the trees ceases to be a response when it comes to ecological consciousness, in auditory terms, it is questionable for a place to be classified as a reserve or wilderness if everything around it prevents the species that inhabit it from communicating or at least hearing each other. If the noise of highways, construction sites, planes, cars, motorcycles, and roads constantly interferes with a sound landscape, it degrades it, making the language built by biodiversity fall apart. Without possible dialogue or transmission of sounds among peers, they stop encountering each other, and therefore cease to reproduce. Predators increase in number excessively and, when they run out of food, they begin to spread, desperate, to other places seeking food, becoming pests or threats to other eyes, and this is another way to slowly but effectively dismantle a landscape. Filling it with noise — in this case, stemming from antropophobia — to the point of silencing it completely.

How necessary is it then, to contemplate, take into account, to keep a place alive? What kind of operations, dynamics, or efforts does it involve? Keeping a place alive means keeping a testimony, an expression, a story about a way of existence composed of the many organisms that live and cooperate in a network both inside and outside of it. A way formed not only by individuals, but by the relationships established between each of them; thoughts, feelings, conveniences that create links and even affections, at times transitory, mostly enduring. All of this, in some way, is imprinted on the Earth's crust, leaving a mark, permeating behaviours and responses, echoing in memory.

There are many modes of cohabitation, and we simply cannot do without this or that ecosystem just because it may seem unattractive or unprofitable. That said, in Latin America and around the world, right-wing movements that deny the ecological crisis in which we are immersed and the importance of implementing environmental state policies are gaining strength. It is clear; underestimating the impact of human activity on the planet discourages states from regulating or minimally intervening in the actions or expansion of the free market and companies. Under this logic, sovereignty, destiny, and environmental care depend on the will and fluctuating interests of the private sector.

In line with this, these platforms propose extreme defunding of state spending, abolishing resources aimed at providing free access to health and education, scientific and technical research carried out by public institutions, and various ministries. Believing that these actions can be carried out — cutting or simply eliminating entities, constructions, ideas, existences, or identities — without considering the costs, harm, or disruptions to the population as a whole is contrary to the terrestrial logic in which things or events never happen on their own or out of context.

In terms that fill me with emotion and visibly go beyond the personal, I was able to undertake this residency thanks to the FORMATION scholarship granted by the National Fund for the Arts in Argentina. It is the first time I have received recognition and this type of support from the state to carry out my practice, and it represents a turning point for me.

If a wetland is removed from the world, if it is suppressed because the policies that should protect it are fading, if it is filled, and private neighbourhoods are built on it, or if it is set on fire to make way for soybean cultivation, then the forest that follows is also removed from the map, and consequently, the wilderness is lost. In the face of the danger that this may sound very abstract and even dystopian, these potential disappearances also fade various manufactured products and foods from our lives, even highly processed ones, which (at some point, even if it's almost anecdotal) come from and depend on it and the many worlds that make up our world.

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I came across a family of beekeepers who work with a colony of bees in the middle of the Chaco forest, near some palm groves on the way to the province of Corrientes, producing honey carefully, free of additives and preservatives. I was able to create an audiovisual record of their work, and after a long day, as the sunset approached, someone lit a small fire, a girl brought a black, worn-out pot, and, amidst mate and tereré, batches of pororó (in Guaraní, popcorn) soaked in warm forest honey emerged. It was in this impromptu ceremony that I got to taste it. Its sweetness, so characteristic, resides precisely in the rich and spontaneous diversity of flowers with which this swarm of bees and humans engage in dialogue in their daily lives.

I remember a hypothesis that Patricio shared with me about the name Mburukuja, the Passiflora flower that climbs and extends throughout the American continent from the Amazon region to the south of Argentina and Chile, anchoring tips, one with the other. One of its possible meanings in Guaraní is: “a living being that provides food for all.”

The impenetrable forest clings to our clothes and our path as we walk or swim through it; everything is thrown at us, envelops us as we make our way. And it tears us apart, crosses us, questions us in our drift, comes to ask us for something in return; the forest becomes our skin. 🐟