From Earth to Air: Ruin, Flight, and Containers in the Work of Brígida Baltar

Abstract

By analyzing works traversed by the theme of flight by Brígida Baltar, and by Yves Klein, it becomes possible to observe that Baltar’s work develops over time through a trajectory that moves from earth to air. Throughout her artistic practice, from her early interventions in the architecture of her house to the act of collecting natural elements in the landscape, extending to the series Esculturas Aladas presented in the exhibition O que é preciso para voar (Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, 2011), her actions construct a poetics of ruin. In the beginning of her trajectory, the artist’s body operated as an agent of intervention within architectural space; over time, however, her work came to express an awareness of the fragility and ephemerality of the means with which she chooses to work in a moment marked by the exhaustion of natural resources and the extinction of species. In this sense, the article draws a parallel with the concept of string figures developed by Donna Haraway, inspired by the carrier bag theory of fiction proposed by Ursula K. Le Guin. From this perspective, the text associates Haraway’s reflection with selected works by Baltar, investigating whether the narrative present in her practice positions itself within this inversion of the heroic narrative.