Point of No Return (Postfossil – Soft and Tender Extraction series)

Paulo Arraiano’s research explores the concept of visual seismography, analyzing shifts in natural, social, and cultural paradigms. His multimedia practice intersects with matter and antimatter to address the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, and both natural and human diasporas. This project reflects land, sea, labour, memory, transportation and future imaginaries, questioning rituals of home, displacement, and ecological justice. Here, the ocean becomes a space of reflection on the loss of freedom of movement, and a nostalgic space for figures like the traveller, or the bourlingueur—anti- figures of the colonial settler and ‘migrant’. It asks what traces remain from the first waves of conquest in 1441, and how the legacies of exploitation and mass trade continue to shape our present. Paulo Arraiano recently exhibited in Storm Hunters, Centre d’Art Contemporain Passerelle, Brest, (2022) and Garden Of Gods, Vellum/LA, Los Angeles, (2022); A certain instance of “verrition”, Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon, (2023) and Espanto, Centro Arte Oliva, Norlinda e José Lima Collection, Porto, (2023).