Heleliis Hõim "DARIEN a"
OKAPI Gallery 8.-25. May 2024

The exhibition "DARIEN a" offers a glimpse into the Darien
jungle that straddles the border between Panama and Colombia. 
We explore the complex relationship between the Guna Yala community 
and nature through the artist's lens. The exhibition captures 
the initial image of a harmonious jungle village on the Caribbean Sea, 
which gradually gives way to a dystopian reality as we witness the
contradictions between nature and the community. We see how the
inhabitants' sense of belonging fades away, and their connection with
nature diminishes. 
The Project comprises material produced during the artist's art
residency in the village of Armilla, Panama, in 2022. It features
sculptural pieces complemented by a series of photographs of the
rainforest captured in January this year during the artist's Costa
Rican residency. The artist draws on Jacques Lacan's idea of the
"object small" in their work, which symbolizes the eternal
unfulfillment of desire. 
It comprises three parts. The first part is a raw and robust
travel documentary that captures the village of Armilla in a dense
rainforest rich in vegetation. The footage uncovers not only animals
and birds but also illegal and inhumane activities, including drug
trafficking, animal trafficking, human trafficking, and trafficking
in human beings' migration. Since the village of Armilla, its
inhabitants, and the illegal road that runs through the area with
their help migrant flow was banned, the photographic and video
footage covertly consists of uncontrolled frames, which were later
filtered through the artist's camera through the artist's
experiences, material handling, and interpretations.
The second part of the exhibition is a photo series titled "Real on
Not?", which plays with the twisting of truth and the visual
illusion and emphasizes the nature of desire and unfulfillment. 
It is complemented by a personal element in the photo-mystery series
"Monteverde," which takes us to the dystopian primeval
world of the jungle and illustrates the unfulfillment of expectations
and hopes in jungle life, a life of coexistence with nature, and the
search for wild freedom. It also reflects the unattainable mysticism
coupled with the artist's longing for the primordiality, belonging,
and roots of the forest.
The final part of the exhibition is a sculpture installation that
reflects on addictive relationships and parasitism, which are
abundant in the thick rainforest, both as biological forms and as
human activity. In nature, there is a biological struggle for
existence and cooperation, with plants exploiting each other, sharing
and mediating, without negative connotations, and everything is in a
constant state of change: death means new life, new life means new
life, fire a cleansing and a lack of light or nutrients an
adaptation. However, this is not the case in the human environment.

The project raises issues of values, power, and cultural loss through
the images and stories that lead us to question what is for the
observer the object of the small a - that desirable but ultimately
elusive object of desire. Does pursuing this 'something' nourish or
destroy the soul?