Continuing our ongoing artist immersion campaign, Awasi Iguazu recently invited Argentinian ceramicist Cecilia Nigro to spend some time at the Relais & Chateaux lodge.
With a formal training in PR and communication, Cecilia turned to ceramics after finishing postgraduate studies in the US. She is a co-founder of the ‘Arriba’ studio where she teaches ceramics, its modeling techniques and the search for a personal artistic language.
“I work almost exclusively with ceramics” she explains. “I explore the alchemy and intrinsic processes of material metamorphosis. I edge, sew, and model the material. I overlay and saturate. I repeat, create contrast, and provide movement. Fragility, morphology, and the almost absence of colour permeate my works.”
Deep in the Atlantic Rainforest, built in to the slopes above the banks of the Iguazu River, Awasi Iguazu is one of three Awasi lodges in South America.
With 14 private villas, each with private terrace and plunge pool overlooking the forest, Awasi Iguazu is a boutique lodge offering unrivalled comfort, privacy and luxury.
Designed with a strong sense of place, each villa is built on stilts to give guests an uninterrupted view across the canopy.
Furthermore, as with every Awasi property, Awasi Iguazu provides a bespoke, tailor-made experience, made possible by the fact that each villa has its own private guide and vehicle, allowing for fully personalised excursions with our expert guides.
Awasi Iguazu is also a particularly inspiring location for a ceramicist.
The local Guarani communities have a rich heritage in art and craftwork, using natural materials to weave baskets, carve woodwork, and design pottery and ceramics.
“It served as a mirror” reflected Cecilia as she talked about her experience working with the Guarani. Although she may hail from Buenos Aires, here she found herself a foreigner, an observer, peeking through a window to another culture, perspective and language.
The experience was clearly a rewarding one, prompting Cecilia to reconsider how she sees the world and reinforcing the strong spiritual – rather than material – value and connection to nature the Guarani nurture amongst their community.
Ñaú mud, found in abundance along the Iguazu and Paraná rivers, is a clay substance ideally suited for sculpting bowls, plates and pots which the Guarani have used for millennia.
Interestingly, it also requires a different approach, reinforcing Cecilia’s position as an outsider in this land – when first attempting to fire a piece made from Ñaú, Cecilia discovered that it had fractured into pieces.
Upon returning to her studio in Buenos Aires, Cecilia continued using Ñaú to sculpt new pieces, adapting her techniques to make the most of this unfamiliar material. Symbolic, to Cecilia, of the difficulties of translating thoughts, ideas and worldviews from one culture to another.
As well as sharing pottery techniques, Cecilia also teamed up with a local artisan to learn traditional weaving techniques, using canes that grow in abundance in the dense Atlantic Rainforest.
Her time spent at Awasi Iguazu was an immersive, heartfelt and all-encompassing experience that stimulated and inspired her creativity.
The richness of the Atlantic rainforest, with its abundance of colours, sounds, smells and textures, was particularly valuable to an artist such as Cecilia. The lush and multisensory jungle allowed her to experience the jungle through all five senses, a catalyst for her artistic development.
Of course, it wasn’t all work whilst Cecilia was staying with us.
Taking to a kayak, she explored the rivers and lakes dispersed throughout this verdant corner of Argentina, and trekked deep in to the forest in search of birdlife and other animals – this is the most biodiverse part of the country after all.
Take a look at the the video below for more on Cecilia’s experience at Awasi Iguazu.