• Project title: Negation
• Featured artist: Mars de Silva Saude
• Festival location: Cardiff, Wales
• Date: October 2026

Negation is a newly commissioned cinema performance by American-Portuguese artist Mars de Silva Saude, which will premiere at the Experimentica live art festival at Chapter in Cardiff from 22-24 October 2026. The artwork will incorporate 16mm film projection, live narration and sound, and will bring together the artist’s research into the representation and visibility of border violence in countries such as the UK and the USA.

Mars de Silva Saude’s work will destroy the image through burning film, coming to a point where there is no longer a film image, and the performance continues in the dark with sound (voice, pre-recorded soundscape) alone.

As part of its 25th edition, Experimentica will bring together audiences, artists, curators and programmers from across the UK at Chapter, which is Cardiff’s leading centre for contemporary arts. The performance will be presented in the Seligman Theatre. Mars de Silva Saude will also participate in a public panel discussion at Chapter, alongside the venue’s Performance Curator and another participating artist.

Image: Chapter, Cardiff

• Project title: Spotlight: Geração 80
• Featured artist: Geração 80 (artist collective) from Angola
• Festival location: Edinburgh, Scotland
• Dates: October – November 2026

Spotlight: Geração 80 is a programme of film screenings dedicated to the acclaimed Angolan collective Geração 80. The screenings are presented during the Jali Film Weekender, taking place in Edinburgh from 28 October to 1 November 2026.

The project supports the co-development and delivery of a programme comprising three public screening events, presenting a retrospective selection of works from Geração 80’s filmography. The programme will provide UK audiences with a rare opportunity to engage with contemporary film and moving image practices emerging from Angola. It forms part of the second edition of Jali Film Weekender, an initiative by Jali Collective to expand access to African and diasporic cinema across Scotland.

All screenings will take place at Filmhouse, an arthouse cinema in Edinburgh. Other public events designed to contextualise the work will include post-screening Q&As, talks, workshops, commissioned writing and networking events.

Image: Spotlight: Geração 80, Air Conditioner (Fradique, 2020). Courtesy of Jali Collective.

• Project title: O que Afunda, Ouve, Lembra, Volta
• Artist: Eunice Pais
• Studio location: Belfast, Northern Ireland
• Dates: February – March 2027

O que Afunda, Ouve, Lembra, Volta [What Sinks, Hears, Remembers and Comes Back] is the first solo exhibition by Portuguese-Mozambican artist Eunice Pais.

The exhibition centres on a new film commission, Sargassum, alongside a selection of existing sculptural and photographic pieces. The new work explores connections between ecology, maritime histories and migration through links between northern Portugal and Belfast, approaching the North Atlantic as a space of movement, transformation and exchange. The project will draw links between Portuguese and Northern Irish contexts, engaging with shared social issues such as the climate crisis and debates on nationality through the lens heritage.

This exhibition is Pais’ first solo exhibition in the UK and will take place at PS², an exhibition and artist studio space from Paragon Studios in central Belfast, in collaboration with Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh.

A public programme of events include a conversation between Pais and artist-researcher Alessia Cargnelli; a workshop led by the artist in collaboration with Anaka, a local women’s collective; and a screening of Pais’ films.

Image: Eunice Pais. Credit: Mariana Silva

• Project title: New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project
• Featured artist: Nestor Pestana
• Gallery location: Twickenham, England
• Dates: May – August 2027

New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project brings an artistic investigation into nocturnal species to Orleans House Gallery, including cinematic and experiential work focused on the history and cultural representation of bats from Portuguese artist Nestor Pestana.

The Bats Project will explore the portrayal of bats in Western popular culture, drawing on cinema and videogames to highlight how they often privilege horror, fear and extermination while overlooking ecological relevance. Pestana’s work envisages a new aesthetic genre more akin to the habits of these species; one that embraces a multispecies mindset.

Pesta will explore questions such as “how is New Dark Aesthetics experienced?” through collaborations with ecological experts, guided tours for visually impaired audiences and artist-led workshops for young people.

The exhibition takes place in Orleans House Gallery’s woodland, a local authority site. The project sits within the gallery’s Cultural Reforesting Artist Research Programme, which asks how we can renew our relationship with nature in the context of the ecological crises of our time. A permanent sculpture and audiovisual experience – which provides a maternity roost for the local bats – will also be installed in the gallery’s woodland.

Image: Nestor Pastana and sculpture prototype. Courtesy of Orleans House Gallery.

• Project title: Art of the Possible: Rhythm • Flow • Resistance
• Featured artist: Attilio Fiumarella
• Location: Bristol, England
• Dates: July – August 2027

Art of the Possible: Rhythm • Flow • Resistance is a transnational exhibition and site-specific activation taking place at Jacobs Wells Baths in Bristol. This Grade II listed former public bathhouse is currently being restored and transformed into a new cultural and heritage space by Trinity Community Arts.

Bringing together artists from the UK, Portugal and Brazil, the project explores movement, collective memory and resistance through photography, immersive installation, sound, film and performance. The exhibition connects civic heritage with Afro-diasporic narratives and contemporary artistic practice, using the newly uncovered and naturally lit pool hall as a setting for large-scale cultural activation for the first time in decades.

Featured works include Attilio Fiumarella’s photographic explorations of bathhouses and civic space; performance and political theatre by São Paulo collective Legítima Defesa led by Eugênio Lima; and Breathe, an immersive sound and light installation by Bristol-based organisation In Between Time.

This exhibition is being developed through a new international collaboration and forms part of Trinity’s wider vision to reactivate Jacobs Wells Baths as a civic and cultural powerhouse for Bristol.

Image: Attilio Fiumarella. Courtesy of Trinity Community Arts

• Project title: Far from the Source
• Artists: Sofia Brightwell, Desiree Kong and Maine Jesus
• Museum location: Stowmarket, England
• Dates: August 2027 – February 2028

Far from the Source is a visual arts exhibition taking place at the Food Museum in Stowmarket, Suffolk, a museum dedicated to exploring the cultural, social and historical significance of food.

The exhibition will take place in The House, a newly renovated space opening in summer 2027 that will provide a permanent exhibition exploring food in the home. Far from the Source will follow its inauguration, bringing contemporary visual art into conversation with this new permanent home.

The exhibition brings together the work of three Lisbon-based artists, Sofia Brightwell, Desiree Kong and Maine Jesus, exploring how food acts as a gateway to belonging. Through painting, photography, installation and sound, the artists examine how rituals, ingredients and memories carry cultural meaning, and how people reconstruct a sense of home through what they cook, eat and share.

Alongside the exhibition, a programme of three participatory workshops invite visitors to engage directly with its themes. Led by each artist, participants will build a personal recipe book as an act of family archival work, cook together around a traditional Brazilian dish, and explore the cultural life of food-wrapping techniques from across the world.

A lasting publication will extend the life of the project beyond its physical showing, ensuring the stories and voices gathered throughout the programme continue to reach new audiences.

Image: Artists' work. Courtesy of Food Museum

• Project title: Sandra Poulson: New Commissions and Exhibition
• Artist: Sandra Poulson
• Gallery location: Nottingham, England
• Dates: October 2027 – January 2028

The first solo exhibition from Angolan artist Sandra Poulson will present newly commissioned sculptural installations alongside selected existing works, covering themes of peace, progress, industrialisation and globalisation. The exhibition will be take place across two of Nottingham Contemporary’s largest spaces, enabling Poulson to realise her most ambitious installation to date. It will subsequently tour to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

Sandra Poulson is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores Angolan political, cultural and social landscapes in relation to history, oral tradition and global power structures. Through an archaeological and semiotic approach, her practice positions everyday objects as carriers of micro stories through which she examines how Angolan material culture reflects political, economic and spiritual forces. Her works take the form of assemblages and sculptural installations, drawing materials from domestic items such as discarded furniture and clothing. In doing so, she reveals how objects circulate through homes and markets, sustaining postcolonial power structures and global systems of influence.

Image: Nottingham Contemporary