Rubiane Maia
Speirein, 2021-2023
Photograph mounted on 5mm foam board
84 x 119 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
Photo taken by Manuel Vason
Rubiane Maia (b.1979) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist based in Folkestone.
Speirein is a word of Greek origin that first appeared in the earliest translations of the Bible where it was used to describe the dispersion of the Jewish people across the world following their captivity in Babylon. Within this context, some linguists argue that speirein became the root of the term diaspora, its biblical usage providing a foundational reference for articulating experiences of traumatic displacement.
In the performance Speirein, the artist works continuously for ten hours, replicating the form of her own feet. The process unfolds in four stages: preparing the raw material by mixing plaster, cement, and water; filling the mould; allowing it to dry; and carefully removing the hardened pieces. Most of the cast emerge fractured, with broken toes, a deliberate imperfection that symbolically recalls the suffering of those who endured the transatlantic crossing and set foot in the Americas for the first time. In the final stage, when a significant number of feet have accumulated on the floor, the artist performs a ritual of care. She stains the fractured white surfaces with earth mixed with water, massaging and handling each cast with tenderness and attention. This act transforms the replicated feet into relics, emphasising resilience, dignity, and the enduring humanity of bodies that bore the weight of unimaginable trauma.
The performance was first presented in 2021 as part of PSX: A Decade of Performance Art in the UK, organised by Future Ritual at Ugly Duck, London.
The second edition of this performance was presented in the context of Ana Mendieta’s retrospective at SESC Pompéia in São Paulo in 2023.
This photograph was exhibited in Rubiane Maia’s solo exhibition, Borders Without Edges, at kollectiv (13 September – 19 October 2025) which coincided with the sixth edition of the Folkestone Triennial in which Rubiane Maia was one of 18 participating artists. The catalogue for the exhibition can be viewed HERE.
Courtesy Flavia Nespatti and ANTESALA
Keppels
Biography
Working across performance, installation, video, writing and photography, Rubiane Maia’s practice explores the body as a site of memory, perception and transformation. Guided by the energies of place, landscape and the more-than-human, she creates works that centre care, interdependence and embodied knowledge. Often developed through site-responsive research, her work engages with organic materials, ancestral memory and altered states of perception. Recent projects have drawn on autobiographical texts and transgenerational narratives to address themes of race, gender and belonging. She has performed and exhibited internationally, including at the 35th São Paulo Biennial (2023), Jerwood Visual Arts (2018), ICA London (2021), and Inhotim Institute (2023). Her two-month long durational work The Garden was presented at Terra Comunal, Marina Abramović + MAI, São Paulo (2015), and she has developed research-led projects in high-altitude landscapes across Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil. In 2025, she participated in the exhibition Marina Abramović + MAI in dialogue with Joseph Beuys at the Museum Schloss Moyland in Germany, presenting the work Coming from the Plants, through a six-day live performance.