FOREST OF BALMS / Bienal de Guatemala
Forest of Balms
(2021)
Olfactory-acoustic sculpture: fans, fabric impregnated with Balsam de Peru, megaphones, fifteen-minute sound loop
This olfactory-acoustic installation explores complicated histories of migration and displacement.
Two fans circulate the aroma of Balsam of Peru: a product of the Peru Balsam Tree, Myroxylon balsamum, the balsam is extracted by skilled workers on plantations in El Salvador. The balsameros carefully scorch and cut away sections of bark, fixing rags over the exposed sapwood. These repurposed materials, which might once have been a pair of jeans or a football shirt, absorb sap from the tree and are later pressed to extract the precious balsam.
Maciá invites us to consider the smell of colonial history through this balsam, one of the first perfumes to cross the Atlantic. The medicinal and aromatic qualities of this scent have been celebrated since the time of the Maya. In the sixteenth century it became an important colonial export for European medicine and perfumery, Spanish colonialists shipping it to Europe from Peru.
The acoustic composition features the sounds of winds, recorded in deserts around the world, and the calls of insect pollinators recorded in the Chocó rainforest, Colombia. The insect pollinators of the rainforest remind us of both the abundant biodiversity engendered by cross-pollination and the fragility of symbiotic ecosystems. The winds trespass unwittingly, plucking things from their original context and throwing them into new ones. These migrations and displacements are destructive but generative, forming and reforming our world.
With thanks to NELIXIA