Pablo Ramírez González

– the word rejects a simple translation: to heal, to grow, to plant. A cure for sunburn, or a vitamin packed super food, it references the common name of aloe vera. ‘Zabila’ the Mexicanism for the Spanish ‘sabila,’ the species itself originates in Africa and the Middle East. Travelling over the Atlantic with Spanish colonists, this invasive species was introduced to the New World hundreds of years ago– naturalized, in a welcoming climate, growing well and embraced by the local population for its medicinal and metaphysical properties. 

“Zabilar: Gardening Light, Harvesting Sound” is an installation of ceramic objects and accompanying sonic architecture that examines the role of this ubiquitous plant. Pablo Ramírez González focuses on the plant as a metaphor for mixed history, how indigenous and colonial attitudes combine and mutate, creating an installation informed by the ethnobotany and indigenous practices of ‘deep listening.’

An ambient soundscape is modulated and altered by electric signals generated by the zabila, attuning us to the perception of the plant. Reaching infinity through magnification and digital reconstruction of our natural environment, the artist breaks down recorded sound through granular synthesis, elementally deconstructing the environmental stimuli into a new hybrid form that serves as a megastructure to visualize interspecies bio data.