Untitled Fair 2021

“To be strong is to first live according to your weakness”—David Lapoujade

“Forbidden bird” is an installation by artist Regina Parra that comprises two neon pieces. In one of the pieces, the public read “NO SE." In the other one, we read "VOLAR." Both pieces are made of neon red lights mounted on a metal sculpture.

Since both pieces are installed on the beach sand, the public can glimpse both the sky and the sea through the hollow space of the neon letters. A poetic dialogue is then established between the desire to fly, announced by the words in red neon, and the infinite blue of the sky and ocean.

For this project, the language chosen is neither the American English, spoken in the United States, nor the Portuguese, the mother tongue of the artist, who now lives in New York. The Spanish language was selected not only to promote a more direct dialogue with the Latin community in Miami but also because it is understood as a place of encounter. Standing for this place “in-between”—so familiar to the foreigners living in a new country, therefore, living “in-between-languages" and "in-between-cultures."

The title “Forbidden Bird/Pássaro Proibido” is a reference to Maria Bethania’s 1976 album of the same name. During the 1970s, Brazil was under a harsh military dictatorship. And the idea of a bird represented the desired freedom.

“ForbiddenBird/Pássaro Proibido" talks about desire, freedom, and, at the same time, the impossibility of this desire in the face of reality. I don’t know how to fly. I want to fly.

The impossibility here is not a renunciation, but a movement towards action and decision. It is not from today that artists try to touch the impossible in a double role of drowning and surviving.

Desiring the impossible can also be the ultimate and almost desperate attempt to expand the living reality. An attempt to create spaces, folds, and cracks when faced with an unbearable situation.