Like the ocean at Fort Tilden, the tree’s history is entangled with histories of war. Once employed in leather tanning for military gear, its production was dominated by the Argentina-based British company La Forestal. During the Cold War, competing powers raced to secure it as part of the global contest for strategic raw materials.
The work plays on fuerte’s double meaning, fort and strength, asking which forms of strength endure and which histories remain.
This sonic activation amplified Fort Tilden’s Atlantic water as a resonant speaker, incorporating radio reception, fm transmission, and hydrophonic listening transduced through a tank of water tinted with Quebracho natural dye. Improvising with this site specific sound system became a practice of environmental attunement - leaning into resonant frequencies, building dissonances and harmonies of feedback, weaving rhythmic interventions into the folds of the kaleidoscopic textures emerging from the tank. In dyeing the amplified water with quebracho rojo, the performance allowed for an exploration of the sonic dimensions of the dye permeating the site of Pombo’s intervention. All were asked to add ice cubes of quebracho dye prepared by Pombo to the resonant tank throughout the performance, and were invited to then take a vessel of dyed ocean water home with them at the end.
Fuerte Quebracho was made possible with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts and is part of New York Textile Month.