Amber grey Substance or waxy consistency or greyish-black and musky odor found in the digestive tube or the sperm whale and other marine cetaceans, which are expelled together with fecal matter on the surface of tropical seas in masses of 14 to 15 kilograms. It comes from the action of cetacean gastric juices on their cephalopods, the basic alimentation of the first. Their principal components are cholesterol (80%) and amber. It melts down at 60C and is inflammable and evaporates almost without residue, insoluble in water and soluble in organic solvents. It is used in perfumery as a fixative and tint; in olden times it was used as an aphrodisiac
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Text translated from La Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana

AKU-AKU is the word in the Rapa Nui language of Easter Island that defines dæmon, soul, or the closest spirit that marks the rhythm of a person’s life. This sculpture is inspired by the fetishist tradition of African syncretic spirituality. When the healers or shamans of these cultures received a request from a supplicant they entrusted it to their sacred spirit or fetish, ‘awakening’ it.

An important part of the ritual consisted in nailing to the figure a piece of iron or some other element related to the ceremony. Similarly, in the invisible world of smells, molecules need to have a degree of excitation to be transmitted.

This sculpture combines the smell of metal with that of wood, and in this instance I would like to define that Wood as sandalwood, which has traditionally been used in many cultures as a ritual element.

Lluís Ventós