Mónica de Miranda’s long-standing research into land, ecology, memory and decolonial thought feeds into her outdoor site-specific installation, Earthship, at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Built using wood and rammed earth, the S-shaped structure offers benches and seed beds and is adorned with plants sourced locally from Kochi.

For the biennale, the de Miranda has been ‘experimenting with new materials, particularly terracotta and earth buildings, which connects directly to the themes of earth, craft, and ancestral knowledge’, she adds that, ‘Working with terracotta allows me to engage with local traditions while introducing new formal and tactile possibilities into my practice.’

De Miranda regards soil as a site of memory, resistance, and regeneration because it carries within it stories, traumas and possibilities of renewal. She is inspired by the Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva’s view of the earth as a living maternal force as well as the Bissau-Guinean liberation leader, agronomist and poet Amílcar Cabral’s understanding of land as a dynamic, political and historical body. At Kochi the artist aims to highlight the relationships between ecology, body and territory.

Reimagining public space as a place for collective memory and communal gathering, her project also includes a programme of performances and workshops designed with local curators and artists. On the opening day of the biennale, she presented A New Alphabet, a performance in which participants created new sounds for each letter of the alphabet. Her installation also served as a site for a performance by Berlin-based butoh dancer Yuko Kaseki. As de Miranda puts it, ‘Ultimately, I see this project as an invitation to consider how art can activate regeneration—culturally, environmentally, and socially.’