Eduardo Navarro
Hydrohexagrams (For Tahuata), 2017

Bronze coins, drawings (pastel on paper), single-channel video installation (color, sound)
Commissioned by TBA21–Academy

In Hydrohexagrams (For Tahuata) Eduardo Navarro created an oceanic version of the traditional Chinese divination method I Ching. The ancient script upon which the divinatory prophecies are read originated during the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE) and is interpreted by casting a set of three coins six times to create a hexagram pointing to the revelatory passages in the book. The work emerged from a set of serendipitous encounters during an expedition held by TBA21–Academy to the Marquesas in 2016. Searching for a logic generated by the sea, Navarro produced two large sets of bronze I Ching coins that are embossed with oceanic drawings the artist created during the expedition. 

In the town of Hapatoni, where the idea for the work originated, the artist proposed to the local community to use the coins and I Ching book to pose a question to the ocean by throwing three coins into the waves six times. The resulting divination hexagram (the unit used for divination in the I Ching) was defined by the force of the waves. In order to be able to throw the coins six successive times, as is required by the divination system, Navarro and his collaborators created handmade rafts on which the heavy coins could be transported into the sea. In preparation for this action, the village decided on questions they would ask the ocean. They decided on this question: Will the solidarity and generosity of our ancestors be transmitted to future generations? 

The village created a song based on their interpretation of the oracle, set to the oldest chant of Hapatoni, whose melody is inspired by the waves of the sea. The three coins that were cast into the ocean are shown as part of the installation, while the other I Ching set stayed behind in Hapatoni as a public artwork displayed in the Artisan Museum as a divination tool for future use in the villages of Tahuata. 

Together with the bronze coins the work includes a video documentation of the oceanic divination action and a series of drawings that Navarro produced during the expedition. The work reflects on worldviews that go beyond land-based systems of knowledge and fixity to embrace instead the movement of the tides, the fluxes of water, and the oceanic. 

CURRENT LOANS

Group show: Remedios
Venue: C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba
Curator: Daniela Zyman
Exhibition 14 April 2023 -  March 2024

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, In 1979. Lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.