Letter to Boa Sr
A small painting that evolved spontaneously in 2010 after hearing an account of the death of Boa Sr, a the last surviving person fluent in speaking the ancient tribal language of Aka Bo in the Andaman Islands. At the time I was researching the roots of my own family in Portugal through aspects of language and loss and an account of the Portuguese anthroplogist Leite Vasconcelos who visited London in the early C20 to document Portuguese archives in other European collections . In London he was looking at when the Portuguese marrano and Sephardic community had lost speaking their mother tongue, this fascinated me as I cannot speak Portuguese or Ladino the language of these ancestors. I was listening to Yasmin Levy singing the jewish hymn - 'Yigdal' - which was sung at the beginning and the closing of the day and somehow it resonated -- as I understand neither language this was fitting enough for me to transcribe the hebrew which of course I did not understand either and yet also somehow felt an affinity for.
The opportunity of taking the small work to the Azores in terms of its diasporic references suggested itself to me immediately.
Mixed Media on Canvas
32cm x 23cm
