Stars twinkle on a huge blue wall, and on another wall, the moon is growing larger. Rain falling from the ceiling become ripples spreading out on the floor. All of this has been created using parts from musical instruments. Touching the piano wire rain, the constellations made up of the guitar strings and tuning pegs, or a moon made of a tambourine instantly produces music in this space. A video of the composer Nomura Makoto playing these musical instruments demonstrates some of the music.

In another room in this building, which used to be an earthenware pipe factory, there are arrays of three-dimensional works reminiscent of blue mountain ranges. NASAʼs Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 and designed to travel outside our solar system, carries some records with recordings of various sounds from planet Earth, intended for making contact with any intelligent extraterrestrial life that might happen to find it. From the graphic representation of some of these sounds, which travel through space to this day awaiting decipherment by someone, Glenda León created wave-like drawings and turned into three-dimensional ceramic art, in collaboration with Nagoya University of the Arts.

León grew up in daily contact with music and dance in the nation of Cuba, with its strong tradition of Afro-Cuban jazz. As an artist, she uses a variety of artifacts to intervene vividly in the relationship between nature and humanity. Like her works that interpret as sheet music the patterns of lines hidden within nature, like the ridgelines of mountains, the tracks of animal movement, and coastlines, the sections of which look similar to the whole, many of Leónʼs projects are linked to sound, urging us to listen to the nature that surrounds us and to the voices of others, and the voices within us. León has represented Cuba in the 55th Venice Biennale (2013; Italy) and recently received the Pilar Juncosa & Sothebyʼs Award of Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Mallorca (2021; Spain), where she is going to have a solo show in 2023. She has also participated in the Havana Biennial (2003, 2015, 2019; Cuba), and Dakar Biennial (2018; Senegal) among others.

Selected Works & Awards

2021

Música de las formas, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain

2013

55th Venice Biennale, Representative of Cuba, Venice, Italy

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• Listening to the Stars (Aichi), 2022
• Photo: ToLoLo studio