Tracing landscapes with sounds.

Accompanying text for publication included in Nadia Hernandez’ exhibition. 

Nadia Hernandez’ new series of works may seem new to those familiar with her prolific painting and textile practice. However this turn to sound is one that makes complete sense. Let me explain, Nadia’s paintings are infused with both her own poetry and that of her grandfather, often featuring text by way of poetry or lyrics to songs as central elements. These texts sometimes appear as solo subjects in her paintings and often they appear and disappear within the plane, transitioning into other forms. Nadia, as a lover of music, has hosted her own radio show Ritmo Tuqueque and DJ’s as a part of her extended practice – we share this in common. 

Music is part of Nadia’s tool box, just as painting, colour and visual form are, and just like for many Latin Americans it is how she carries and expresses her culture. This is after all one of the ways in which we tell our stories, we dance because despite so much of our suffering we understand joy and community as a crucial part of living. Most importantly it's part of what our grandparents gifted us. This is why we so often make our grandparents' music our own and bring it to the present by making new versions just as they did with their grandparents' sounds. Often in the process rules are broken as experimentation takes place, thus adding to this multigenerational conversation. 

The sound work that Nadia presents and has developed with composer and sound designer Thom Pringle as part of her TarraWarra Biennial offering is very much an experimental exercise in aggregation and subtraction of traditional forms. For example, the poem Píntame Angelitos Negros by Andrés Eloy Blanco which speaks to the politics of race, is recited like poetry with cuatro venezolano in thebackground. Dub techniques, such as echo effects are brought in to create a vast, expansive soundscape. 

The artist is able to hold all the approaches through the sonic space which is a testament to an artistic methodology that has been developing over time and which is now being applied into the sonic material through pace, rhythm and silence. This sophisticated approach to structure, composition and layering become effective tools within this sonic space in presenting an attachment to place, people, culture, rupture, joy, connection, migration and politics. 

Nadia developed the sound component to the work during her residency in Miami, Florida in 2024. This sound work creates a time-based environment where poetry, elements of songs, colour, and vast ambient landscapes converge. The work is visited by the voices – primarily  in Spanish – of her collaborators who weave poetry and song lyrics into soundscapes which create a confluence of folkloric, and experimental moments. These sounds fill the space created by the large colourful hanging fabric banners installed in the gallery, thus creating an immersive space. A landscape to inhabit. 

In conversations with Nadia, she speaks of her method of working with her new collaborators, many of whom are part of the Venezuelan diaspora. In a reciprocal gesture of generosity Nadia describes how everyone arrived ready to collaborate, bringing themselves and their instruments to the process.

Anchored by a detailed map, part of a publication outlining the project's process and the protest music of her homeland, Venezuela, this installation speaks directly to Nadia’s continual engagement with her culture and the music genealogy to which she now contributes as a member of the diaspora, who like so many has had to leave her place of origin reluctantly. This is a gesture that powerfully speaks to the contribution of those who live far away but continue to engage with our cultural landscape, aggregating our own experiences and engaging with the complexity of both everyday politics and historical narratives, blending personal experiences with broader cultural and political conversations.

Lucreccia Quintanilla