A nameless creature embodying experience faces the earth¹

Jialu Pombo (text and images)

This visual essay is composed of photographs and collages showing a person interacting with the earth through the act of digging and burying themselves. Fragments of the body, such as arms and hands, appear in direct contact with the earth or manipulating the shovel. The person also appears crouching close to the ground, and buried. Vegetation is present. In the collages, fragments of images of other landscapes and other bodies blend together through associations between shapes, colors, and themes, expressing the integration between different beings and generating a dreamlike tone that contrasts with, and complements, the realistic content of the photographic record.

The photographsin this visual essay record an action that would later prove to be the prelude to a long process of grounding, one that might also be called enrooting.² Enroot to land. Touch down on the ground, take root, establish a deep and essential bond. Cease to be a helium balloon floating through the world to incorporate perceptions of the body and the earth—, materializing a nameless creature and a more consistent and conscious existence. A nameless creature closer to the pulsating consciousness of the biosphere, more immersed in the integration that connects all beings. A movement that makes it possible to rediscover an ancestral origin that is as far away (further) as it is near (closer) to the consanguineous origin: the life-forming agencies of—water, fire, air, and earth.

Getting close to the ground provokes new ways of seeing your bowels, connecting relationships that have always been present but sometimes escape self-awareness and the world: the body is water, fire, air, and earth. How, then, do we exercise care to maintain this pulsating awareness? A constant question in an infinite process —with no defined beginning or end—a process that is the midway point of a life being lived. A process in which throughout we act, imagine, dream, scratch out words, question ways of life, and attempt to materialize and make visible an existence. After desiring for so long not to exist, desiring not to be a body, a nameless creature embodying experience faces the earth.

shit and earth

there are ways of living so far removed from the earth that they distance themselves from the earth in their own bodies. well, one of them was inaugurated when the toilet was invented. we defecate into a bowl filled with water the earthy compound that the body produces from the digestion of food (which, in turn, comes from the earth). in the name of supposed cleanliness, a separation occurs between shit and the earth. but there’s nothing clean about it: all shit ends up in other waters and pollutes other environments. it’s not that the shit itself is dirty, what happens is that it doesn’t belong in all that water; it just floats there (literally and figuratively).

whoever invented the toilet, wanting to distance themselves from shit, really thought shit was dirty. they removed the dirt from their sight, waving goodbye to the shit as it went down the drain. but if shit is the body’s transformation of food and food is clean enough to be eaten, why would shit be dirty?

do the materials, substances, chemical compounds of the body itself add dirt to food when they turn it into shit?

i believe that whoever invented the toilet didn’t think that food or the inside of the body and its substances were dirty, but still wanted to stay away from shit because they thought it was dirty. this absurd event follows us to this day.

could it be that for these people who defend bowls filled with water dirt is even in or of the earth?³

shit is this earthy mass that the body needs to eliminate to avoid clogging, continuing the organic life cycle. it is an organic decomposition that adapts to the earth, since it complements the decomposition processes that are taking place there, processes that are essential for life to continue. this, by the way, is one of the most basic stages of the life cycle.

defecating on the ground is not only basic, it is an act of cyclical integration; —everything that is taken from the ground returns to it.

it turns out that man doesn’t even want to look at shit, nor look at the earth. if you don’t even look at your own shit, how can you know the necessary basics of taking care of yourself?

if you find the portion of earth that your own body produces from the mixture of what comes from the earth you inhabit dirty, how will you find the foundations to remain standing?

if you don’t want to deal with the decay that the body/earth harbors to maintain life, how is it possible to stay alive?

my mother always taught me to look at my shit before flushing: observe the shit and you will know yourself. little did I know that this was the minimum act to maintain the balance of body/life. How many years it took me to realize this! Her biggest concern was always knowing whether or not we had some imbalance in our shit processes – diarrhea, constipation. this second option was the biggest worry; my mother did everything so that we wouldn’t be caught by this lack of externalization of shit. ironically, the imbalance I suffered most from throughout my life was diarrhea – this shit without consistency and substance. poor thing: can’t even create a body for themselves, since this body they were born with looks more like a floating helium balloon… too much air, not enough earth. if it had been possible to defecate squatting directly on the ground, perhaps this body would have gotten to know the earth more closely, and, from then on, it would have been able to form its own consistency capable of transmitting consistency to their shit. it would come out towards the earth, in due time, without blocking, without exploding. it would simply come out, participating in another part of the organic cycle.

i dreamed I was in a bathroom that wasn’t private, but had a privy⁴. i approached it to defecate, and before I could even sit down, shit started coming out, in droves, immediately coming to life. some of it moved like worms away from me, while others emerged in the shape of an animal (cat or rabbit?) and ran away, like a sculpture that had come to life. i sat there on the privy that wasn’t private, shitting more and more shit…

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Jialu Pombo is a trans and neurodivergent artist-researcher. They hold a Master’s degree in Visual Arts (UFRJ) and a PhD in Clinical Psychology (PUC/SP). They research movement, subjectivity and the body, the relationship between creative processes and care practices, sensory experiences, the creation of languages that enhance dissident experiences, and accessibility in the arts. They work with photography, collage, text, sewing, and actions. Since 2010, they have participated in exhibitions, residencies, and taught workshops at institutions such as Parque Lage, Terra Una, and Sesc. They also work with activist organizations.

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¹ This text was not only written for the present visual essay but also draws on my doctoral thesis in Clinical Psychology, entitled no meio do caminho: os processos de criação e cuidado de uma criatura sem nome no território-dos-nomes-que-grudam (midway through the path: a nameless creature and their process towards creation and care in the the territory-of-the-glued-names)which I completed at PUC-São Paulo (2022). In my thesis, I develop the ideas mentioned here, among others, articulating them with excerpts of creative and/or poetic writing —the excerpt “shit and earth” being one of them.

² The photographs were taken in 2017, with the collaboration of Ju Borzino, artist, friend and partner in many experiences.

³ T.N. The verb “to be” in Portuguese is translated as both “ser” and “estar”. The first is used when referring to more permanent or defining characteristics and the second with more temporary conditions or locations. The original text uses both “ser” and “estar,” asking if/suggesting that the people who defend toilets are both distant from the dirt as part of the very essence of the earth and dirt as a temporary condition.

⁴ T.N. The text here plays on the similarity in Portuguese between the words “privado / privada” meaning private and toilet. In that regard the English translation here uses the word “privy” for toilet (an older term common in the United Kingdom coming from the French “privé” meaning “private place”) as an appropriate translation to parallel the words in Portuguese.