Orun Aiyê is a visual exploration of the continuum between the spiritual and the material. In Yoruba cosmology and Candomblé, Orun is the invisible realm of the orixás and ancestors, while Aiyê is the physical world of human life. This project turns to the terreiro, sacred spaces where ritual unfolds, to explore how these worlds intersect.
Although Candomblé is profoundly colorful, these photographs are rendered in black and white. Color ties us to the visible world, but this work seeks entry into another realm, one of belief and feeling. The images are conceived not as aesthetic surfaces but as symbolic acts, like bells calling the orixás to descend. Through gesture, rhythm, and atmosphere, Orun Aiyê becomes a theatre of devotion, where ritual reveals the inseparability of the sacred and the material.