Nadia Botello: Theophany

In her solo exhibition at the Contemporary, sound artist and composer Nadia Botello presents works that consider the San Antonio River as “a shaping force,” inviting us to consider “what the river might be saying for itself.”

A ninth-generation Texan and fourth-generation San Antonian, Botello has long been connected to Texas waterways. In an interview with the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Botello shared, “Growing up here, the river, water, and drought were part of our daily lives. I visited the river often with my parents, we learned about our water system in school, and all of our local news channels reported on the level of the [Edwards] Aquifer along with the weather daily.” It wasn’t until Botello lived in other US cities, where relationships with water sources were more distant, that she began to question: what does it mean to pay attention to what water might be saying for itself?

Nearly a decade after she began investigating this question through her practice, Botello will combine artworks across an array of media––sound, sculpture, image, and more––to give voice to the San Antonio River. In What the River Says, 16mm film submerged in the San Antonio River creates intimate images that form purely through the act of holding the film underwater, with no other human intervention altering the final image.

In contrast, Bodies of Water requires listeners to physically initiate contact with the works. Upon contact, the compositions contained within the water–– long-form compositions created from the San Antonio River as source material through field recordings and U.S. Geological Survey data––are made audible to the listeners. The physicality required, along with the sounds of breaths taken by the artist’s late father between singing and speaking, reflects our inherent bodily connection to water. The human body is made up of about 60% water and according to the artist, “each exhale returns moisture to the air. These breath fragments also echo Yanaguana—the early name for the San Antonio River, often translated as ‘spirit waters’—reminding us that our bodies are part of the same ongoing cycle.” Human impact becomes visible through silk banners revealing microscopic images of microplastics hidden in our waterways in Phainein, and limestone boulders ground us in the geology of the Edwards Aquifer, the source of drinking water for nearly two million people, in Sediment.

“Moving across time and material, Theophany is a meditation on the San Antonio River as an active presence,” Botello says. This exhibition holds particular resonance for the Contemporary, which sits along the San Antonio River. Theophany transforms the gallery into a space of deep listening––not only to the artist’s compositions but to the river itself, encouraging visitors to engage with the water that flows past the Contemporary’s doors with new awareness and attention.