XEQUERE COLLECTION

Xequere Vase

During the age of slavery (from the 16th to the 19th centuries), Brazil received some of the largest numbers of slaves shipped mainly from Angola, Mozambique and Guinea. These Africans were set to work on the sugar and cotton plantations where they all lived crowded together in slave quarters known as Senzalas.

Together with the traditional dance of Capoeira, these slaves brought from Africa a whole set of percussion instruments among which the so called “Xequere” a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering it. In performance it is shaken and/or hit against the hands resulting in a rattling sound.

My project is called Xequere; a terracotta vase shaped as a gourd and beads made of white lava stone recalling sugar rocks. Through Xequere, we celebrate an important historical event that makes up what Brazil is today.

Design 2016

Terracotta, Lava Rock, Guilding

Edition of 8