TabomBass (2016), commissioned by the 32nd São Paulo Biennial, is a sound system composed of stacked speakers, similar to those used at street parties. However, this soundsystem is composed of subwoofers only, meaning that it only plays low frequency sounds. Placed in front of them, lit candles move with the displaced air and dance to the rhythm of the deep sounds – basslines composed by artists from the city of Accra, who collaborated with Caccuri after her research in Ghana. Accra received groups of African-Brazilians after the Malê Revolt, a slave rebellion that took place in Salvador in 1835. To this day, their descendants are known as ‘Tabom’ – because, not knowing the local languages, they answered all questions with ‘tá bom’ [roughly translated as ‘okay’]. Caccuri takes this historical background, seeking to expand connections and meanings to consider the Africa-America trajectory, proposing an encounter in which Brazilian musicians and performers improvise based on the African sounds and, through this combination, create a hybrid work of art.
