Matéria Matéria by Ayla Tavares is an ongoing series of wall-based works, roughly the size of open palms, that repeatedly returns to an initial gesture in order to unfold multiple narratives through clay. Situated between ceramic reliefs and graphite drawings, the series condenses systems of representation used to make sense of phenomena that exceed human perception, whether through their vast physical scale or their slow temporality. Archaeological artifacts, scientific diagrams, cosmological models, geological formations, and vernacular forms coexist within intimate compositions that translate expansive processes into the scale of the hand.

For the Biennale of Contemporary Keramics, Matéria Matéria enters into dialogue with the island of Rhodes and the figure of the polymath Posidonius, who lived and worked there during the first century BCE. Posidonius understood the world not as a collection of separate domains but as an interconnected system linking celestial bodies, tides, climate, geology, and human perception. His investigations expanded history beyond the surface of the Earth, situating humanity within a broader cosmic order.

Presented as a constellation of ceramic works, the installation reflects on the beginning of the day as a moment of observation and orientation. Through references to astronomical measurement, mythical geographies, atmospheric phenomena, and concepts such as sympatheia—the interconnectedness of all things—Matéria Matéria proposes Rhodes as a site where myth, science, and material knowledge converge. The works approach dawn not as a point of origin, but as a threshold where multiple temporalities coexist and become perceptible through matter.