Before Hooves Grow considers the island as both a fantasy of escape and a site where isolation produces material change. Taking Madeira as its point of departure — historically imagined through narratives of abundance, cure, remoteness and reinvention — the exhibition places these projections alongside allopatric speciation, the evolutionary process through which geographically isolated populations gradually develop distinct characteristics.
Extending this process to the human body, the works imagine what prolonged isolation might produce: hooves adapted to steep terrain, or voices capable of travelling across mountains. Through this speculative evolution, the desire to escape and become otherwise is pushed towards an absurd conclusion: adaptation becomes so complete that departure may no longer be possible.
Loafhead
(2025)
Location
Capela da Boa Viagem, Funchal
Dates
2022
Materials / media
Mixed fabric, aluminium, ropes
Photo Credits
Hélder Folgado
LoafHead centres on a speculative hybrid figure—part body, part bread—used to explore hesitation, escapism and denial. Bread becomes both material and metaphor: something that nourishes and grows, but also dries out, decays and disappears.
Through textile, sculpture and performance, the exhibition looks at how we respond to instability and crisis: how we adapt, avoid, endure or imagine our way out. At once vulnerable and absurd, LoafHead becomes a figure for both exhaustion and the possibility of change.
Before Hooves Grow considers the island as both a fantasy of escape and a site where isolation produces material change. Taking Madeira as its point of departure — historically imagined through narratives of abundance, cure, remoteness and reinvention — the exhibition places these projections alongside allopatric speciation, the evolutionary process through which geographically isolated populations gradually develop distinct characteristics.
Extending this process to the human body, the works imagine what prolonged isolation might produce: hooves adapted to steep terrain, or voices capable of travelling across mountains. Through this speculative evolution, the desire to escape and become otherwise is pushed towards an absurd conclusion: adaptation becomes so complete that departure may no longer be possible.
