Thank you Gulbenkian Foundation Exhibitions Fund!

We're thrilled to have been awarded the Gulbenkian Foundation Exhibitions Fund for an exhibition in Spring 2027 with artist Eunice Pais. The Gulbenkian Exhibitions Fund assists with the presentation of art from Portugal and Portuguese-speaking African countries in the United Kingdom. Eunice is a Portuguese Mozambican practitioner based in Porto, Portugal.

Working with SIRIUS in Cobh, we are jointly organising a commission, displays in each gallery, and a residency and an event series across both venues. O que Afunda, Ouve, Lembra, Volta [What Sinks, Hears, Remembers, Comes Back] is an exhibition that explores the North Atlantic landscape, maritime infrastructures and narratives of circulation and communion between humans and more-than-humans, connecting Portugal and Ireland.

The exhibition addresses the sea as a living and opaque archive – a space that recalls, of displacement, where nature and dissidence are in continuous transformation.  It centres on a new film, Sargassum, alongside existing works, all of which examine kelp as a connective body between the coastal areas of Apúlia, in northern Portugal, Belfast, and Cobh.

Eunice’s practice spans moving image, photography, sound, and sculpture, and explores the intersections of ecology, labour, belonging, and counter-coloniality. Through research-based and speculative approaches, she addresses the relationships among human and more-than-human worlds through the lenses of extractivism and inherited ways of producing knowledge. 

We have been collaborating with SIRIUS on strategic development and programming, and this project strengthens our mutual commitment to a civic-oriented approach to art and curation.

The project is one of seven funded by this year’s Gulbenkian Exhibitions Fund. Other organisations include Chapter, Cardiff; Jali Collective, Edinburgh; Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham; Trinity Community Arts, Bristol; Food Museum, Stowmarket; and Nottingham Contemporary.