Echoes and Mirages is curated by Carlos Quijon, Jr. and Yudi Rafael, and approaches the artwork as an apparatus capable of poetically and critically activating recognition to investigate the relationship between artistic practices and histories across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as ecological questions in an interconnected world. 

The exhibition is the third in the Transoceanic Perspectives program, conceived and coordinated by curator Yudi Rafael and organized by Almeida & Dale since 2023. Echoes and Mirages presents works by artists who produced in Brazil and in different countries of Southeast Asia, exploring affinities that manifest as reverberations — not necessarily formal or thematic — between the contemporary artistic production of these regions. 

By taking the artwork as an apparatus, the curators explore how movement, refraction, and the duplication of matter can generate likeness within difference and offer an expanded understanding of the notion of ecology. “Through the mediations of the apparatus, ecologies are transfigured into languages and forms — recognizable and interpretable translations in different contexts — echoes and mirages that enable a connective sensibility,” write the curators. 

Ranging from traditional ceramics to video, and from installations to objects incorporating electronic mechanisms, the exhibition presents a body of work never before shown in Brazil. One example is Lesley-Anne Cao’s Amphibian Palm (2024) series, composed of glass tanks with wave generators that cause “books” to turn their pages. The Filipino artist’s works investigate the intersections between language and nature. 

The legacies of colonialism—another point of contact between Brazil and certain Asian countries—and their impact on the relationship of native peoples with nature, territory, and their histories also permeate the notion of ecology addressed in the exhibition. In 2 or 3 Tigers (2015), Ho Tzu Nyen explores the central and ambiguous role of the Malayan tiger in the mythologies of the territory that today corresponds to Singapore. Based on an 1885 engraving depicting the first encounter between a white man and the great feline, the artist reveals how traditional narratives were transformed in the face of British colonization and, likewise, proposes a worldmaking through their recovery and re-creation. 

Another highlight is a project by Alice Shintani, conceived especially for the exhibition. Extending her Tuiuiú (2017) and Prayer Birds (AS/COA, New York, 2024) projects, Shintani’s work occupies the entire façade of the gallery with the painting of a stylized bird, evoking both migratory flows and the synthesis characteristic of Brazilian modernist architecture — in particular, the tile designs of Athos Bulcão. 

Marina Woisky also presents a new work in the exhibition. In Cavalos se abraçando (Horses Hugging) (2025), the artist explores large sculptural forms that inhabit the threshold between two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, challenging the artistic tradition of representation and the pathways between the digital plane and the natural world. 

From fictitious places composed of photographic juxtapositions to topological resonances of encounters between colonial authorities and wild animals, and even a technological entity performing a plantation dirge, the exhibition weaves together different forms of interface between art and ecology. 

Echoes and Mirages will be on view at Almeida & Dale Caconde 152 starting November 8, featuring works by Alice Shintani (1971, São Paulo, Brazil), Bagus Pandega (1985, Jakarta, Indonesia), Emilia Estrada (1989, Córdoba, Argentina), Ho Tzu Nyen (1976, Singapore), Jaider Esbell (1979, Normandia – 2021, São Sebastião, Brazil) and Bernaldina José Pedro (1945, Guiana – 2020, Boa Vista, Brazil), Lang Jingshan (1892, Huaian, China – 1995, Taipei, Taiwan), Lesley-Anne Cao (1992, Quezon City, Philippines), Maria Thereza Alves (1961, São Paulo, Brazil), Marina Woisky (1996, São Paulo, Brazil), Nguyễn Trinh Thi (1973, Hanoi, Vietnam), Pratchaya Phinthong (1974, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand), and Priyageetha Dia (1992, Singapore).