Drum Beats

The Afro-Puerto Rican artist Daniel Lind Ramos is a master of the art of assemblage. Born in 1953, he grew up in Loiza, a community steeped in African culture that was set up by fugitives from the Spanish run plantations. This installation was another highlight of the São Paulo Bienal. Titled ‘Con-Junto’, Ensemble, it is a brilliant carnivalesque work composed of everyday objects such as graters, brooms, gourds, cymbals, buckets, and cooking pots. Multi-dimensional and highly theatrical, it plays with ideas of ritual and procession. Although silent, it beats. Although still, it moves. By all accounts his Loiza studio is open to the public, and locals regularly drop off items and found objects that they think might be of use. In his own words his mission is to find beauty in the everyday and to develop a unique language that speaks of the collective experience and memory of the African diaspora.