Poema del mar
For M.
My most personal text so far in this blog
Those of my readers who follow me on social networks will already know that I have recently discovered my fascination for the world of fish, marine life, the deep blue sea, the Poema del Mar aquarium of the Loro Porque Foundation in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. After several visits, I have gotten my annual card because few activities found I so relaxing and meditative, rewarding and satisfying, than observing and interacting (at least I want to believe so) with the fish, turtles, manta rays, rays, octopuses and other friends and companions of Nemo. Yes, Nemo is here too.
I showed up to feel the textures of the air, smell the different nuances, listen to the sounds of the different spaces, of the classical music. I came to bathe in the intense green and blue and to pay a visit to my new friends, the gray shark and the white shark. I had been longing for weeks to walk under the sea again.
The aquarium is named after the famous paintings of the master Néstor Martín Fernández de la Torre, exhibited in the Néstor Museum at the Pueblo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a series of eight plates: Dawn, Noon, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Squall, Calm Sea, Low Tide and Altamar.
Poema del mar – Momentos del día – Néstor Martín Fernández de la Torre
Poema del mar – Estados del mar – Néstor Martín Fernández de la Torre
I don’t quite know, somehow, I see a direct relationship between this museum place that gives real life to the cycle of paintings and my current working life, as if it were a symphonic poem.
As I look at the fish and other underwater animals here in the large aquarium, it crosses my mind, how complex and ingenious the organizational system must be that hides behind this specially manufactured thick glass 39 cm thick. I wonder if there must not be similarly strict rules of order and hierarchy as we find in a symphony orchestra.
Apparently, just like in an orchestra, everyone lives harmoniously and idyllically together in front of the audience, they never bump into each other, at most you see a huge blanket lightly brushing against another medium-sized fish, like “move over buddy, I’m much bigger than you”. But nothing more. They don’t attack each other, no fights or anything. They all coexist peacefully. Not even the various sharks that cohabit in this huge pool attack the other gill-breathing colleagues, nor do they eat them bloodily in front of the human eye that observes them.
Curious. So easy, so light. So still and calm. All of it.
Letting my reflections free, I wonder if what I see here, in the huge deep blue background of an artificial sea, is the reality or the work of many people in the shadows that are not seen. Someone sage and talented, invisible to the eye of the beholder, orchestrated this micro system in such a way that it is just that: peaceful and paradisiacal. It turns out that there is also a master here, an artistic director, who keeps them all at bay.
Thinking of my colleagues at work, I suppose that there, too, are many others to be named, such as stage managers who are responsible for cleaning these magically blue waters, the habitat of these marine concert artists. There will be underwater light and sound techniques, educators and many others.
The audience sees nothing but beauty, a poem of the sea, hears a symphonic poem, a symphony in blue and green with some splashes of intense colors. No one sees the tears shed in the process, no one sees the sweat and bloodshed. And neither should they see it. It would shatter the masterpiece, the sound composition, the final emotion.
For the fish-performers to shine in their full splendor within the symphonic aquarium, there must be many others in the shadows with infinite patience, people who invest their time and effort far beyond what is contractually due, people who give their all.
There are, and they do it for the love of the result, for the love of art in the most literal sense and for the good work, to be part of this poetic composition, to admire their fish-artists, and maybe, the one and the other because life has never allowed them to be artists themselves. They strive every day because they believe that the world is a better place thanks to art and thanks to the sharks that live their lives in captivity so that we humans can learn from them.
Being a cultural manager in an orchestra (and I can imagine being a biologist or educator in an aquarium) is sometimes very hard and painful, but the 3 hours of glory, at the end of the week,
the performed concert, enjoyed not only in a blue and green sonority, but a sea of multicolored sounds, compensates for everything.
I am one of these people who live and die for their orchestra. So many others live and die for
these animals in captivity. I dedicate this text to the companions in the shadows, to all those who
never give up, those who move heaven and earth and, if necessary, also the immense deep sea, so that again and again, all together, we may live a little bit of celestial glory on earth.
Epilogue:
In order for the sharks not to eat the other fellow aquarium inhabitants, they must be previously trained and slightly overfed. A new animal cannot be put in with the others without first learning this delicate balance between who eats at what time, from what bowl and how much. A score, a masterpiece written as a script that carries harmony and peace intrinsically.
Nicole Martin Medina
September/October 2024
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
*****
PLEASE NOTE:
This text is available as well in:
SPANISH (Original): https://nicolemartinmedina.com/aquarium-poema-del-mar/
GERMAN: https://nicolemartinmedina.com/de/aquarium-poem-del-mar/
RECOMENDACIONES DE LECTURA:
Sobre el Aquarium Poema del Mar en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria:
Sobre el Museo Néstor en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria:
https://fedac.org/museosetnograficos/museo-nestor/
Sobre el ciclo de pinturas Poema del mar de Néstor:
2 responses