Between Earth and Water: Clay as symbolic operator of cultural landscape

The centrality of the visual dimension in understanding cultural landscape tends to obscure the symbolic and relational dimensions that also constitute it. This article proposes clay as a symbolic operator of cultural landscape, exploring its liminal condition between earth and water as a guiding thread for an analysis of forms of heritage that escape regimes of visibility, with the aim of rethink- ing landscape beyond its fixation on visible and durable forms. The article adopts a qualitative and essayistic approach, drawing on literary works, artistic practices, and theoretical frameworks as modes of access to the sensory and relational dimensions of landscape. Drawing on the thought of Ingold and Bispo dos Santos, it proposes that inhabiting the landscape means participating in its formation. In dialogue with Evaristo and Vieira Junior, the article examines how the materiality of territory can inscribe belonging, be denied as a right, or be experienced as a wound upon the body. Clay is then articulated with the symbolic through the figure of Nanã, an orisha in Yoruba cosmology, and through the work of Tostes. The conclusion argues that the concept of cultural landscape requires recognizing an interiority within things, capable of addressing and returning the gaze. Preserving a living landscape, in this sense, does not mean fixing it in durable forms, but sustaining the relational and experiential conditions through which it continues to emerge — a per- spective that demands a reassessment of the criteria and instruments of cultural heritage protection beyond visible and stable forms of record.