What´s for dinner?

(2022)

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

Dates

2022

Materials

Mixed fabric, acrylic resin, wool, wood

The Closer You Look, the Better You Look developed from a single found image of a family on holiday at the beach. As the image was enlarged, its low resolution began to dissolve familiar forms: bodies, objects and gestures became ambiguous, and details appeared to shift into something else. These visual fragments became the basis for a series of drawings and sculptures that translated digital distortion back into physical form.

The work reflects an ongoing interest in looking as a speculative, almost forensic process. Zooming in becomes a way of searching for evidence, constructing narratives from incomplete information and testing how much meaning can be projected onto an image once certainty begins to break down.