How does the exhibition relate to the annual theme ALIEN?
This exhibition engages with the theme by approaching the alien not simply as a science-fiction figure or extra-terrestrial presence, but as a condition of otherness, instability, and transformation related with contemporary forms of embodiment.
Rather than presenting a singular image of the alien, the exhibition constructs it through a constellation of works that together form a fragmented portrait of hybrid and dissident subjectivities. In this sense, the alien emerges almost as a collage assembled through different artistic positions in the exhibition – appearing through bodies that resist fixed definitions and exist between categories.
In this sense, across the exhibition, the alien appears through transitional and unstable bodies. André Romão, Hugo Canoilas, and Lito Kattou construct hybrid posthuman corporealities where human, vegetal, animal, and synthetic elements merge. Esse McChesney, Laila Majid & Louis Blue Newby, Odete & Diana Policarpo approach queerness, speculative identity, and technological mediation as forms of dissident embodiment that challenge normative systems of visibility and belonging.
At the same time, works by Kiluanji Kia Henda or Hugo de Almeida Pinho reflect on historical and political processes through which certain bodies have been classified, excluded, objectified, or rendered “other.” Here, the alien becomes a socially constructed category tied to racialization, epistemic violence, estrangement, and exclusion.
Rather than treating alienness as something external to the human, the exhibition suggests that the alien already inhabits contemporary existence itself – emerging through ecological instability, technological transformation, fragmented identities, and dissident forms of subjectivity.
What title would you give to your entire curatorial body of work, if you had to choose one title?
This is an unusual exercise, but a possible title for my curatorial body of work would be maybe “Resonances of Relationality”. Much of my practice is grounded in the creation of relationships between seemingly distant images, temporalities, geographies, and forms of knowledge. I am interested mainly in curating group exhibitions as spaces where works do not merely coexist, but resonate with one another – conceptually, materially, sensorially, and affectively.
This idea of resonance also reflects my interest in hybrid and transhistorical imaginaries, as well as in forms of collective experience. Whether engaging with themes such as mysticism, light, social resilience, posthuman embodiment, or magical structures of perception, I tend to approach curating as the construction of constellations rather than fixed narratives.
In that sense, “Resonances of Relationality” evokes both the relational dimension of my exhibitions and the attempt to create encounters between different bodies, images, histories, and modes of sensing the world.
What would an exhibition addressing the same question have looked like 10 years ago, or what might it look like in 10 years?
To be honest, I don’t think the core questions of the exhibition have changed that dramatically over the last ten years. Questions surrounding the body, otherness, hybridity, queerness, technology, or systems of exclusion were already being addressed by many artists and thinkers. What has changed, perhaps, is the intensity and urgency with which these questions are now experienced within everyday life.
Ten years ago, an exhibition like Dissident Bodies might still have approached these issues through frameworks more centred on representation, identity, or visibility. Today, however, we are living in a moment where technological infrastructures, ecological collapse, AI, digital mediation, and political instability have made the boundaries between human and non-human, organic and synthetic, physical and virtual increasingly unstable in very concrete ways.
At the same time, I think many artists were already anticipating these transformations long before they became mainstream concerns. In that sense, this exhibition is not necessarily responding to something entirely new, but rather continuing and expanding on-going conversations around embodiment, relationality, and alterity.
I also imagine that in ten years these questions will still remain very relevant, although perhaps in even more radical forms. The body may be more understood as part of larger ecological, technological, and affective systems. But I think the central tension explored in the exhibition will probably remain. The exhibition might no longer focus primarily on the body as we currently understand it, but on distributed forms of consciousness, ecological intelligence, synthetic life, or hybrid systems that blur distinctions between biological, technological, and planetary processes.
Which work should visitors take the most time to view?
I think all the works in the exhibition require a certain amount of time and attention, because many of them unfold through subtle relationships, atmospheres, and layered associations. The exhibition itself is constructed around processes of transformation, hybridity, and relationality, so I would encourage visitors to spend time moving slowly through the space and allowing connections to emerge between the different works.
That said, the film and sound-based works intrinsically require a longer engagement, like the works by Laila Majid & Louis Blue Newby, Odete & Diana Policarpo, and Alice dos Reis.
But perhaps the work that asks for a longer engagement is Manuel Sékou’s sound piece, which benefits from extended listening, since the layered sonic structures create an environment that changes perceptually over time.
How did the local conditions of the D21 influence the exhibition’s narrative?
The D21 had a very direct influence on the exhibition’s narrative and visual structure. The exhibition design, co-created with the artist Hugo de Almeida Pinho, was developed in close dialogue with the architecture of the space itself. For example, the wall colours and the painted arches were conceived in relation to the existing tones of the ceiling, as well as the shapes of the windows and doorways at d21. Rather than imposing an external scenography onto the space, we wanted the exhibition to emerge from and respond to its architectural characteristics.
This became especially important because the exhibition deals with ideas of permeability, thresholds, hybridity, and transitional states. The arches and spatial interventions helped reinforce this sense of movement between different conditions and atmospheres, creating subtle continuities between the works and the architecture itself.
At the same time, the installation changed significantly once we were physically present in the space. Before arriving, many decisions existed only at the level of plans and projections, but the actual experience of the architecture – its scale, light, circulation, and textures – completely transformed the way the works related to one another.
In that sense, the exhibition was very much shaped collaboratively by the works, the architecture, and the embodied experience of the space itself.
What lessons have you learned that you’ll apply to your next exhibition, what would you change?
One thing I increasingly understand through each exhibition is how important it is to remain open to transformation throughout the installation process itself. With Dissident Bodies, many aspects changed once we were physically inside the space with the works, and that experience reinforced for me that curatorial thinking cannot remain completely fixed at the conceptual stage. The relationships between works, architecture, sound, light, circulation, and rhythm only fully emerge when the exhibition becomes spatial and embodied.
At the same time, I became more aware of how delicate the balance is between openness and coherence – how to create enough conceptual space for multiple interpretations while still maintaining a strong spatial structure.
More generally, I think each exhibition teaches me to trust instability a little more – to allow exhibitions to remain porous, relational, and open to unexpected connections that emerge through the process itself.
Interview: Pia Brand
