Guided by the poetic corpus “Les feux que vos derniers souffles ravivent” [Fires that your last breath rekindle], Myriam Omar Awadi’s The Smell of Earth After Fire and the Promise of Breaths: For the Obsession With Resonance Spreading Tenderly Our Skin/ Our Bodies O/ From the Incandescent Warmth of the Ashes invokes a cartography of breaths, cloths, and ancestral presence. At its center are multiple shiromani: traditional Comorian fabrics sourced in Koko’s [grandmother] spirits.

These clothes form a visual and sonic terrain that flickers between concealment and revelation. Suspended within an arrangement of microphones and speakers shaped like trees – evoking the tangled roots of mangroves – fabric hangs from the swaying branches of these invisible forms. The sculptural and sonic installation evokes the epiphany of a mangrove forest, with all sculptures crafted from wood. Drawing from the Debe, a Comorian ritual tradition led by women, Omar Awadi summons embroidery not only as adornment but as a form of score – a way of holding what cannot be said. Each shiromani becomes both a ritual object and a cultural archive, carrying memory through its folds, textures, and repetitions. They retain not only personal resonance but the gravity of collective belonging.

Conceived across Comoros, Mumbai, and São Paulo, La Réunion (2025) unfolds through networks of care, stretched across continents but anchored in collaboration. The embroideries are produced in Mumbai in partnership with artisans who render each cloth with careful attention. In São Paulo, sculptural wooden bases are fabricated to serve as both anchors and acoustic architecture. Each element enters into dialogue with these artisans’ deep labors, light and sound, shaped during rehearsals with performers – each paired with a single shiromani. These performers are guided by presence, not spectacle. Their movement is minimal, attuned to texture, weight, and breath. Scores are written not for the stage, but for relation – rehearsed in repetition, light, and listening. The performance becomes a shared act of orientation and return, in which meaning accumulates slowly through contact and proximity.

In this work, the shiromani function as active collaborators. Embroidered and suspended, each cloth becomes both a witness and a score. Their shimmering surfaces catch and reflect light, evoking life and the invisible: eyes watching, memories vibrating, and the interwoven energy of those present and those beyond. Movement is guided by attunement rather than choreography, allowing each performer to build a relationship with their assigned cloth’s spirit. Through this process, ritual and performance are brought into alignment. The shiromani carry the work’s memories, so our bodies O, its voices, its forms and its own knowledges.