At the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, French-Comorian artist Myriam Omar Awadi transforms ancestral fabric, performance, and sound into living archives of memory and ritual. In conversation with ART AFRICA‘s Brendon Bell-Roberts, she reflects on resonance as both a spiritual frequency and a political act of remembrance.
Installation view of The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths by Myriam Omar Awadi, during the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
At once tender and defiant, The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths gathers the echoes of ancestral memory into a contemporary ritual of renewal. Presented at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Myriam Omar Awadi’s installation expands her ongoing engagement with the Shiromani — a traditional Comorian textile that, in her hands, becomes a vessel for song, movement, and devotion.
Drawing upon histories of trade and migration across the Indian Ocean, Awadi translates the geometry of pattern into sound and gesture, creating an immersive space where fabric, clay, and breath converge. Her practice blurs the boundaries between performance and prayer, body and landscape, tradition and transformation. Through her work, resonance becomes a mode of survival — a way to remain connected, even after silence.
Brendon Bell-Robert: Your work centres on the Shiromani, a traditional Comorian fabric, which you treat as both a ritual object and a cultural archive. What first drew you to this textile, and what kind of memory does it hold for you?
Myriam Omar Awadi: The Shiromani is part of my own body memory. When I return to the Comoros, I wear it; it’s woven into everyday life. I’ve always been captivated by its colours and patterns—its secret geometry, its voice. Early in this project, I spoke with my friend, the poet Christian Jalma, who said that as human beings we must become the resonance of the place—the river, the mountain, the bird. The Shiromani, with its suns, moons, and flowers, carries that same resonance. It reflects light and sound, thought and spirit, becoming a kind of cosmological map that connects us to our surroundings.
Myriam Omar Awadi with her work The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths during the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
You’ve described embroidery as a form of prayer—a meditation rather than mere ornamentation. Could you elaborate on this idea?
Yes, embroidery is a devotional act. It is time made visible, a movement between hands, thread, and silence. The Shiromanis were embroidered in Mumbai, where they originated, so this act of making already carries centuries of movement and exchange. I think of each stitch as a whisper—something unspoken yet deeply felt. It’s not about romanticising the labour, but about recognising that this repetitive gesture holds intention —a kind of quiet faith.
Beyond the fabric itself, the installation incorporates clay, shoes, and traces of human presence. How do these different elements come together in the space?
The installation is a space of listening and of speech. You sense that something has happened—or might still happen—a gathering, perhaps an assembly. The shoes, the clay, the footprints all hint at the bodies that have passed, whose energy remains. The sound composition, drawn from the performance, becomes a spirit that inhabits the space. Together, these materials create an echo of presence, a collective resonance that refuses disappearance.
Installation view of The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths by Myriam Omar Awadi, during the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
You often speak of ritual not as performance, but as a lived technology of connection. How does this manifest in your practice?
For me, every performance is a ritual before it is an artwork. In Comorian culture, we have ceremonies of trance that connect us to the cosmos, to nature, to our ancestors. This is an ancient technology—older and more powerful than the internet. The wires of this connection are not cables; they are music, breath, rhythm. My installations translate this technology into contemporary form: the space becomes an altar for resonance, for assembling voices, for listening to what is unseen.
The Bienal’s theme of the estuary—where saltwater and freshwater meet—suggests transformation through convergence. How does your work speak to this idea?
The estuary is a perfect metaphor for my process. This work flows between Comoros, Mumbai, and São Paulo—between histories of trade, migration, and resistance. The Shiromani itself originated from this circulation across the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. In working with embroiderers in Mumbai and collaborators in the Comorian and Indian diasporas, I wanted to honour both the violent histories of colonialism and the beauty of cultural survival that persists despite it. The work is an estuary of many waters—many voices—merging without losing their distinct currents.
Installation view of The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths by Myriam Omar Awadi, during the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Your performance at the Bienal’s opening was deeply atmospheric. How did you guide the performers to inhabit this slower, relational mode of movement and sound?
I invited them to create a gathering, a circle of breath. The speech of this assembly was not words but whispers—the amplification of breathing, of touching, of the earth’s sound. From chaos, we sought harmony. Each performer embodied a voice: the voice of the sea, the tree, the snake, the sight, the ecstasy. I asked them to embrace the space, to hold it through étreinte—the French word for hug, which is also an anagram of éternité, eternity. That idea of a timeless embrace guided the performance’s rhythm.
You mentioned a conversation between Koyo Kouoh and Otobong Nkanga as an inspiration. Could you share how that encounter shaped this work?
Yes, it was in Sharjah, some years ago. They began their conversation with a long embrace. That simple gesture—two women, two artists, stopping time—was monumental. It was a reminder that intimacy and attention are radical gestures. I wanted to bring that same energy into my performance: the slowing down, the listening, the deep acknowledgement of one another’s existence. It’s a kind of resistance against speed, against fragmentation.
Installation view of The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths by Myriam Omar Awadi, during the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Finally, your title, The smell of earth after fire and the promise of breaths, is evocative, almost incantatory. What does it mean to you?
The title carries both wound and healing. The smell of the herb after fires is the moment when destruction gives way to renewal—when the earth breathes again. The “promise of grave” speaks to the inevitability of endings and to continuity through resonance. For me, resonance is not sound alone; it’s what endures after the sound fades. It is memory, vibration, connection. The work is an offering to that persistence—to the promise that even after silence, something continues to hum.
Myriam Omar Awadi’s installation remains on view at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo until 11 January 2026, presented with the support of Direction des Affaires Culturelles (DAC), Fonds d’aides aux Échanges Artistiques et Culturelles pour les Outre-mer (FEAC), and Région Réunion. For more information, visit 36.bienal.org.br.
