What´s for dinner?
(2022)
Happily Ever After examines the relationship between optimism, apathy and the persistent idea of life as a linear progression towards resolution — a point at which everything finally falls into place. Drawing on Lauren Berlant’s notion of ‘cruel optimism’, the exhibition considers hope, superstition and small gestures of reassurance as ways of navigating uncertainty, while questioning when these might also become forms of stasis.
Through a series of small-scale wall sculptures and a textile installation structured around the phases of the moon, Happily Ever After sets the promise of a definitive ending against cycles of growth, decline and renewal. Moving between humour, anxiety and hope, the exhibition asks what remains when the promise of ‘happily ever after’ gives way to a continuous process of beginning again.
What’s for dinner? looks at dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins beyond the human body, tracing how these chemicals shape behaviour across species — from optimism in starlings and social bonding in orcas to aggression in honeybees and hibernation in brown bears. Drawing on scientific diagrams and behavioural studies, the exhibition gives visual form to these microscopic processes, unsettling the idea that emotions such as hope, attachment or anticipation belong exclusively to us.
Against a culture increasingly invested in managing mood, productivity and ‘wellness’, these biological mechanisms become a way of questioning how much control we actually exercise over how we feel. Moving between scientific research, humour and speculation, What’s for dinner? approaches the pursuit of feeling better as a recurring biological loop: anticipation, reward, satisfaction, decline — and the inevitable desire for whatever comes next.
Location
Balcony Gallery, Lisbon
Materials / media
Mixed fabric, acrylic resin, wool, wood
Dates
2022
Happily Ever After examines the relationship between optimism, apathy and the persistent idea of life as a linear progression towards resolution — a point at which everything finally falls into place. Drawing on Lauren Berlant’s notion of ‘cruel optimism’, the exhibition considers hope, superstition and small gestures of reassurance as ways of navigating uncertainty, while questioning when these might also become forms of stasis.
Through a series of small-scale wall sculptures and a textile installation structured around the phases of the moon, Happily Ever After sets the promise of a definitive ending against cycles of growth, decline and renewal. Moving between humour, anxiety and hope, the exhibition asks what remains when the promise of ‘happily ever after’ gives way to a continuous process of beginning again.
Happily Ever After examines the relationship between optimism, apathy and the persistent idea of life as a linear progression towards resolution — a point at which everything finally falls into place. Drawing on Lauren Berlant’s notion of ‘cruel optimism’, the exhibition considers hope, superstition and small gestures of reassurance as ways of navigating uncertainty, while questioning when these might also become forms of stasis.
Through a series of small-scale wall sculptures and a textile installation structured around the phases of the moon, Happily Ever After sets the promise of a definitive ending against cycles of growth, decline and renewal. Moving between humour, anxiety and hope, the exhibition asks what remains when the promise of ‘happily ever after’ gives way to a continuous process of beginning again.